


Romanova

by fanfics_she_wrote



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (kind of), AIM - Freeform, Avengers - Freeform, Black Widow - Freeform, Criminal AU, Extremis, Gen, Hydra, I tagged it as graphic depictions of violence but idk for sure if it applies, Iron Man - Freeform, Marvel - Freeform, SHIELD, also please tell me I finally learnt the difference between '/' and '&' in the relationships tag, anywho have some random tags, but I'm a slut for drama, in this house we ignore canon for the most part, look idk where this started but this is where it's ending, refuse to acknowledge canon timelines, this was supposed to be a pure tonynat au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-09 16:10:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 49,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20997614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanfics_she_wrote/pseuds/fanfics_she_wrote
Summary: with a group of teens gone missing and the law not doing the absolute most, an ex-assassin rounds up some old friends outside the law and takes matters into her own hands -- and a billionaire realises he's surrounded himself with criminals.





	1. Chapter 1

~~|2006|~~

Natasha kicked the door closed behind her and tossed the bag on the low table. Its contents clinked dully against each other. 

"Did you seriously pull that heist off?"

"Wow, Sam, how low do you think of me?"

Sam shrugged, raising his hands defensively. "I'm just saying. It was a heavily guarded mansion . . . and you kinda went in there one-woman-army without even letting us know you left."

Natasha had never looked more smug. "And I _still_ got the coins."

Sam sat up properly and reached for the bag, pulling it open and letting a few of the gold coins spill out. He picked one up and turned it over a few times. "I don't get it though. You can't sell them. They're too known. You kinda stole them for nothing."

"I stole them for _satisfaction_, Sam. Besides, I didn't even kill anyone on the job."

"That doesn't make you good, Nat, that makes you semi-normal."

Natasha rolled her eyes. "Where's Dot?"

"It's four-thirty. She's napping."

"Ah."

"So, what are you gonna do with the coins?"

Natasha smirked. "Throw them in Bucky's face. Rub Wanda's face in them. Boast to Steve. I'll actually probably just let Dot have them."

Sam laughed. "Yeah, sounds like you. Dinner in twenty?"

"Oh, yeah, that'll be _great_. I'm gonna hit the shower and wake Dot up. See you in twenty."

Approximately twenty minutes later, Sam set down plates in front of his seated family members, and shoved a bottle in Dot's hands as she sat in her carry cot on the corner of the table, watching everyone else with eyes larger than her face.

"What sadness did you dredge up to cook dinner today?"

Sam glared at Wanda. "Your breakup," he said.

"Low blow, Wilson. But I'll take it."

"And what are you smiling like that for?"

Natasha's smile grew wider as she glanced at Steve. "I brought a gift for Dot. A little set of _very_ expensive toys."

"Oh?"

Natasha stood up and turned the little bag inside out. The antique, collectible gold coins fell from the bag and scattered over the table. Dot laughed and clapped her hands, splattering Sam with the milk from her bottle. He shot her a soft glare that made her laugh a different type of laugh.

Steve's jaw dropped. "You actually did it."

"You guys suck. I can't believe you thought I wouldn't get it done. Even you, Bucky."

Bucky raised his hands in surrender. "I didn't say you _couldn't_. I said you _shouldn't_. What if you'd gotten caught? You'd really trust us with Dot for an indefinite time period?"

"I wanted to talk about that, actually. Well, Scott and I were talking, anyway."

Natasha began to gather her loot back into the bag, handing one coin to Dot. "About what, Clint?"

"This," he said, gesturing around the room, "all of this. We think it's time we. . ."

Natasha glanced at Scott. "Don't tell me this is Laura and Hope in your heads because Hope actually helped me plan my getaway with these coins."

"No, it's not them," Scott said quickly, "it's the girls. Nat, do you really want Dot to grow up with a criminal for a parent? We have a choice, here. We're not dirt poor. We can afford to make an honest living. Buck makes a good point. What if you'd gotten caught? Not only would the Widow's identity be out in the open, but Dot would grow up without you. With the kind of stunts we've pulled over the years, I don't think we'd get anything less than life. I don't want Cassie growing up and having to hear about how her father was put in prison for several different kinds of crimes, and Clint doesn't want that for Nicole. I don't think you want that for Dot either."

Natasha glanced around the table. Her gaze rested on Wanda, finally. "Why do you look like you're considering it?"

Wanda shifted in her chair, doing the same to her pasta with the fork. "My brother called while you were out. We spoke for a few hours. Don't worry, I went all the way to Central Park before I called him back on a burner cell. But we spoke and he thinks . . . he thinks Scott is right. We have a choice. Nat, we've been doing this for almost seven years and I won't deny that it's been the most fun I've had my whole life but . . . my brother misses me. I'm all he's got left."

"We'll why doesn't he join? I don't mind that!"

"Natasha," Bucky said, "this isn't just about you. This is about her as well."

Dot laughed. Natasha glanced her way before looking back to Bucky.

"She needs you more than you need the thrill of all of this. I think it's for the best of we stop altogether. It won't be the same with more of you gone. It doesn't feel right for three of us to go on together if you step back. No one's saying we have to stop being a family, Natasha."

Natasha stared at the baby girl in the carry cot, who was being gently rocked by Sam.

"Fine. I guess you have a point. I'm keeping my coins, though."

Steve grinned. "Of course."

"Oh! There's a house next door to mine that's on s--"

"It's sold, actually," Clint said to Scott, "to your ex-wife, remember?"

"Oh. Right."

Natasha smiled. "I know a place I'd love to stay. We should burn this place, though. No traces. If we turn our backs on this, we turn our backs on everything that links who we will be to who we are and who we were."

"She has a point," Sam eventually said.

* * *

Dot clapped and laughed as they watched the warehouse burn.

"And that was my second last burner cell," Wanda said as she walked back to the group, tossing something over her shoulder.

"What did you say?" Sam asked.

Wanda shrugged. "Evening jog. Saw flames. Called 911."

"Cool. Wait, second last?"

Wanda smiled. "You never know, Wilson."

"We should get going," Steve said.

"Yeah," Bucky agreed, "need a hand with those boxes, Maximoff?"

Wanda shook her head. "I got them. Grab Nat's, will ya? She looks distracted."

Natasha was, in fact, rather distracted. For years, the warehouse had been her home. A safe place where she lived with Sam and Wanda. Steve and Bucky had an apartment somewhere closer to the city. Scott lived near Maggie, his ex-wife, and their daughter, Cassie. Clint actually lived out of state, but he visited often enough. The others had left over the years.

Dot laughed again, watching the flames lick the stars. Natasha smiled before picking the cot up and turning away from the burning wood. "All set?"

Bucky nodded. "I'll drop you off?"

"Thanks."

* * *

It was almost six months later when they next all saw each other.

It was Dot's second birthday that weekend. The child in question had excitedly hobbled over when she heard Sam's voice at the door.

Sam was more excited to see Dot than Natasha -- and they'd sewed each other's wounds closed more than once.

"Did you bring anyone else or can I lock up?"

Sam turned away from the little girl he was bouncing in the air. "Huh?"

"You come alone?" Natasha asked, smiling at the pair.

"Oh, no. Clint's napping in the car. I drove the second half, you know."

"Ah. You think the neighbours will throw a fit if I lay on the horn to wake him up?"

Sam grinned. "Only one way to find out." He turned to Dot. "Wait till you see what I brought for you, babygirl. Wanna show me your drawings?"

While Dot babbled on in various half-words she heard her mother say as she showed Sam several scribbled-on pages she'd stuck to the bottom of the fridge, Natasha slowly opened the car door before climbing in the drivers seat sideways and then leaning against the wheel so she could see Clint scream and jerk upright -- only to knock his head against the window.

It took her ten minutes -- in that time, Steve, Bucky and Scott had arrived -- to calm down fully.

"Is Wanda gonna make it?" she asked as she joined the group in the living room. She raised her eyebrows as she watched the four men watch three little girls showcase their 'art' while mumbling incoherently to one another. "Guys!"

"Huh?"

"Is Wanda coming?"

"We're not sure--" Steve began.

"She is," Scott said, "I spoke to her like two days ago at the Starbucks near my place. She said she'd be here, but maybe a little late."

When Wanda did arrive, she brought her twin brother, Pietro. Unsurprisingly, Pietro was smitten with the toddler trio just like the rest. Natasha wouldn't admit it but she found them endearing.

Hours later, Cassie, Nicole and Dot were fast asleep in Natasha's bed.

"Kleptomaniac," Bucky slurred, looking at Wanda over the rim of his glass.

"Takes one to know one, Barnes."

Bucky shrugged. "Fair enough."

"Two months ago," Pietro said, "Wanda brought home an ornament she liked. It's an ugly thing, but she likes it. It's stolen."

"Bucky put a vase of glass flowers on my dining table," Steve said, "he stole them from the display stand at an auction house."

"You guys just can't quit, huh?" Scott asked.

"I quit," Clint said, raising his hand.

"So did I," Natasha admitted.

"It's a parent thing," Sam decided.

"Look," Natasha said, "I get it, it's an urge, a habit. Hard to break. Its easier when you have the distraction of someone to look after. But if you guys are going to keep at it, we can't meet often -- especially not in the same places. Remember 2002?"

They all nodded, remembering.

"What happened in 2002?" Pietro asked.

Quickly and quietly, Wanda explained that they'd been prime suspects in a string of robberies. They were guilty, but that wasn't the point. They'd managed to get out, but who knew if they were still being watched?

"I guess you're right," Bucky admitted, "but we should be able to still keep in contact."

Natasha shook her head. "This past six months, I've been thinking. I want every part of our past to be kept away from Dot. I don't want her getting caught up in all of that. I understand the urge to keep it up, but I really don't want it near my daughter."

"Then. . ." Bucky looked around, noticing that Scott and Clint wore the same guilty expression as Natasha.

"Is this the last time we're all gonna be in the same place?" Steve asked.

"I think so," Scott eventually said.

"Hey, we've still got those burner cells," Wanda said. "Use them if you really have to. We can always get new ones."

"I feel like there should be more to it than this," Clint said, pouting slightly.

"What, were you thinking about handing out party packs?" Sam joked.

"Well, the adult term would be memoirs to remember the fun times together but yeah."

"I got something," Natasha said, getting up.

They watched as she walked over to a painting and took it down to reveal a safe.

"That's so obvious," Bucky said.

"Too obvious," Wanda said, "which is why it's clever."

Natasha rolled her eyes at the debate that sprung up behind her as she counted out eight gold coins from the total ten.

"I had these altered for the six of you a couple months ago."

"What's different about them?" Wanda asked, passing hers to Pietro to examine.

"If I told you, they wouldn't be so interesting to always keep around."

"That's fair," Steve said.

"Will one of you be able to get two to the brothers?" Natasha asked.

"I'll find them," Wanda said, "if you give one to--"

"I already gave one to him," Natasha said, "or, I had someone get it to him. Don't worry, your ex-boyfriend is still family."

"I'm surprised you're sharing this," Scott said, "I thought the set was going to be your trophy snatch."

Natasha shrugged. "Yeah. But it's fine. You guys are family. Dot's gonna miss you guys."

"So will Nic," Clint said.

"And Cass," Scott added, "but only until they forget these years. They're all three very young."

"Group hug!" Sam suddenly exclaimed. He was met with several shushing and mentions of the sleeping toddlers, but the group complied and huddled up together on the one sofa.

It tipped over backwards.

The next morning, Natasha bade them goodbye for the last time, wondering if they would ever meet again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I know I have Supernova to work on and my A-Force series but Supernova is undergoing heavy editing and the A-Force just stumbled upon a massive plot hole. 
> 
> In the meantime, please accept my humble offerings of apologies and drama


	2. Chapter 2

~~|2011|~~

"Tell me a story, mama. Please?"

The little girl pulled the blanket up to her chin, blinking big, watery green eyes up at her mother.

"I just did!"

"That story sucked."

Natasha folded her arms and gave her daughter a faux stern look. "See if I ever tell you a story ever again, little miss rudeness."

The six-year-old giggled, covering her face with the blanket. Natasha gasped loudly.

"Oh no! Where did Dottie go?!"

There was another giggle from under the duvet.

"Oh, I can hear something!" Natasha stood up. "Maybe she's in the closet! Dot? You in the closet, baby?"

When Natasha pulled open the doors and yelled at nothing, Dot giggled again. Natasha smiled at the sound before going around the room, checking everywhere else. Then she threw herself over Dot, careful not to crush her. "I lost her!" she wailed, beginning to sob in a pathetically fake manner.

Dot threw the duvet down and burrowed under Natasha's arm. "Boo!"

Natasha gasped again. "Dottie! You came back!"

"I never left," Dot said seriously, blinking slowly.

Natasha brushed Dot's hair back. "Good girl. Now get back in the bed."

"Stay."

Natasha smiled. "Why?"

"Because I don't want you to be alone, and after you tuck me in, you're all alone."

"I'm not _alone_, Dottie," Natasha scoffed.

"You are!"

"Okay, I'll make you a deal. If you go to school nicely tomorrow and make friends, I'll make the same amount of friends."

Dot furrowed her eyebrows. "You're just gonna meet my friends' moms and make friends with them aren't you?"

"Obviously," Natasha said, exaggeratedly rolling her eyes. She tapped Dot's nose fondly. "What else?"

"_I'll_ make _you_ a deal."

"Oh?"

"If I make a new friend tomorrow, you have to make friends with my friend's parents and--"

"That's unfair."

"_AND_ you have to go talk to the mechanic down the street."

"The who?"

"The mechanic. The one you're always staring at through the kitchen windows. Mama has a crush. Hey, how come most of the kids have a mom and a dad? What happened to my dad?"

The sudden topic change stunned Natasha for a second.

"Nothing that I know of. I haven't spoken to him in a very long time."

"Does he know me?"

"Mhm."

Dot squinted at her mother. "But does he know he's my dad?"

"That's a whole other story, Dottie."

Dot frowned. "How come he doesn't know? How come you never told him?"

Natasha shrugged. "I probably should have told him a long time ago and now . . . well, we don't see each other anymore. We don't need him, do we?"

"Nah. But we want him. Do I know him?"

"Not likely. Last time he was around, you were really little. Now go to bed or I'll throw your favourite toy in the bin. You have a big day tomorrow."

Dot gasped. "Not my expensive money!"

"That's the one."

"Will you tell me a story?"

Natasha sighed in defeat. "What story to you want to hear?"

Dot thought for a moment. "The family of bandits."

"Again?"

"Please? It's my favourite."

Natasha sighed. She never could say no to Lana's babydoll eyes.

* * *

"What's the 'H' stand for, sir?"

"Howard."

"Howard?"

"That's what I said."

"But . . . but she --"

"Is there a problem?"

Dot tugged Natasha's arm. "Mama!" She pointed at the school employee that was standing in front of them. Natasha shook her head and turned away from the father and daughter at the other door. "Sorry. What did you ask me?"

"Full name and age?" the woman repeated, smiling down at Dot.

"Oh, uh, Svetlana Dorothy Romanoff, she'll be six next month."

The woman frowned. "Ss. . . what?"

"Svetlana. S-V-E--"

"Oh! There it is!" Marking Dot's name off, she knelt down. "Welcome to Little Columbia, Svetlana --"

"Mama calls me Dot."

"Is that what you like to be called?"

"Mhm."

"Okay, then. Welcome to Little Columbia, Dot. You can go on inside and put your bag in the pigeon hole with your name. We can change it to Dot later today, is that fine?"

Dot glanced up at Natasha, who nodded and nudged her forward. Dot gestured for Natasha to bend down. Wrapping her arms around Natasha's neck, Dot gave her mother a big kiss and a tight hug before bounding inside, determined to make at least one friend on her first day.

The woman stood up. "My name is Maria Hill. I'll be Dot's teacher for the first half of the year. Anything at all you need or want to say, just let me know. My details will be on the notice we'll be giving the kids today and it's also on the school website. Most of our kids are fed to our primary schools throught the state and then to the high schools. More than seventy percent of our kids make it into Columbia University. You've made an excellent choice with Little Columbia."

Natasha smiled. "Good to know."

"Official kindergarten hours are from nine to one, but our daycare begins at six and runs right till five. That will be extra costs if it becomes a regular thing, but approximately one week's worth of daycare hours per month is allowed with no extra cost. We understand the busy schedules of a single parent."

"Right. Well, she looks settled so I'll be back to pick her up at one."

"No problem."

Natasha waved to Dot, who energetically waved both hands, smiling widely. Then she motioned for Natasha to leave.

* * *

Natasha sat on the bench and watch the man anxiously walk up and down the corridor on the other end of the playground. He stood out in his sharp suit and combed back hair. She wondered why he seemed so anxious -- she couldn't even see his face so she wasn't sure what his expression said.

"Mama!"

Natasha turned her attention off the man as he returned to catch Dot as she jumped up into her lap. "So? How was your first day, Dottie?"

"It was awesome! I made lots of friends, but they're like just school friends and not like home friends so they won't be coming to my house like Cassie and Nicole used to long, long ago. Okay, but I did make one really really good friend. I don't know how. Ms Hill made us sit next to each other because she was in Mr Coulson's class but she kept making noise with all the other kids so she came to our class and I made her be quiet while Ms Hill was looking at us but then we talked a lot when Ms Hill wasn't looking."

Natasha was used to the excited rambling and didn't have a hard time keeping up.

"Also she says her dad and her mom don't live together so she's a little bit like me except she knows her mom even though they don't spend much time together because she lives with her dad and her mom is like super busy with work. But her dad is also like super rich and he has this party he has to go to and she says normally he would go with her mom but her mom's not gonna be here and now he has to find one so I said she should tell her dad to ask you because--"

"Dot! Why would you say that?"

"Because you're lonely and he's lonely and you're a really nice mom and she says her dad is a really nice dad and we both want to have a nice mom and a nice dad that's always around. Also he's your crush."

"Dot!"

"Oh, and also, my new friend likes my name lots and lots and she says I should use it."

Natasha frowned, Dot's matchmaking games momentarily forgotten. "Dottie, you _do_ use your name."

"No, mama! My _other_ name."

Natasha raised her eyebrows. "The name you have literally _never_ used? The one you laughed at when I told you it's yours?"

Dot nodded. "That one. And she also says a cute nickname is Lana, so now you have to call me Lana forever and ever."

Natasha shrugged. "Whatever you want, babygirl. So, what's your _friend's_ name?"

"Uh . . . I forgot. I know she said I can call her Em. Maybe her name is Emma. Or Emily, like in that story you read me that other time."

"I can't even fault you. I used to do the same thing when I was younger."

Dot began to laugh, then she looked across the courtyard. "There she is!"

Natasha looked where Dot excitedly pointed to see a little brunette girl pointing back. Lifting her gaze towards the man holding the little girl's hand, Natasha instantly recognised the expensive suit of man that had been pacing the corridor.

"Oh, Dottie, what have you done?" she murmured behind her smile as she politely waved back, instantly recognising the man.

It took every bit of self-control Natasha had to stand her ground and keep a passive expression on her face as the father and daughter approached.

"Dad! This is my friend Lana and her mom!"

Dot -- or Lana, as she had officially begun calling herself -- tugged Natasha's arm. "Her name's Morgan, mama. I remembered it."

Morgan's father held his hand out.

Smiling, Natasha shook it. "Hi. Natasha Romanoff."

"Tony Stark."

"Right. Because I haven't already seen you in several television interviews."

"Which was it? My guest appearance series on _the Bachelor_?" Tony asked with a grin.

Natasha rolled her eyes. "MIT alumni interviews, actually. It was about a year or so ago, maybe? Very interesting piece on artificial intelligence. I thoroughly enjoyed that one. Oh, and Mr Stark."

"Hm?"

"You can stop shaking my hand."

"Oh!" Tony yanked his hand back and smiled. "Sorry."

"It's fine."

Tony suddenly grinned. "I hear you've been stalking me?"

"I like to call it spying," Natasha said, folding her arms. Lana and Morgan wandered off to the swing set. "I've just been waiting for the right opportunity to snatch that Audi right from your garage."

Tony nodded the way he did when he was humouring Morgan. Natasha did that too many times not to recognise it.

"And what are you going to do once you snatch it? I'll find it and you."

"Leave the country, obviously. I'm only here to steal the car."

The truth was that Natasha had been watching Tony Stark from her kitchen window because she couldn't understand what a billionaire was doing in a middle-class suburban area when she knew for a fact he privately owned the penthouse suite -- and three floors down -- of Stark Tower _and_ a mansion somewhere. For the first four months after she noticed him, she was sure he'd found out where his gold coins went. She'd grown past that fear, but that didn't do anything to quell her curiosity. It was just easier to lie about stealing the car -- something she would have considered had it not been for Lana -- than make up a different story.

"I see," Tony was saying, "and what if I track the car down and have you locked up?"

"You wouldn't take a mother from her child, would you?"

Tony frowned slightly. "No. Never. Um, so, what do you do?"

"I'm an appraiser at Joseph's. It's a few blocks from here."

"Yeah, I know Joseph's. The auction house, right?"

Natasha nodded.

"Yeah, I donated a couple things."

"I _thought_ the antique watch collection was you."

"Antique watch collection. . .?" Tony gasped before Natasha could begin describing the box. "Pepper _donated_ my watch collection?!"

Natasha smiled. "If it makes you feel any better, it sold at thrice it's worth."

"Should've been five," Tony grumbled.

"Dad!" Natasha and Tony both glanced down to Morgan yanking his arm. He bent down she could go unheard by everyone else, but Morgan wasn't that great at whispering yet. "Did you ask her to the ball yet?"

"Fundraiser," Tony explained, standing up again, "but it's just a little thing. Don't worry about her. Go play with your friend, Dad's busy."

Morgan rolled her eyes dramatically as she left. "Lanaaaa!"

"It's an MIT fundraiser and Morgan found the invitation before I did. She keeps asking me to take her to see it."

"Sounds fun," Natasha said, grinning when she noticed Tony's gaze on her left hand.

"Not married?" She shook her head. "Dating?" She shook her head again.

"I'd ask the same, but the scandal was all over the news."

"Hm. In that case, how would you like to accompany me to a fundraiser Saturday evening?"

"Oh, no. I can't. Dot-"

"Bring her with. It'll be fun for them both. They'll get bored of the event fairly quickly and at least they'll have each other to entertain themselves."

"I. . ."

"Look, it's a fancy event and I somehow managed to delay finding a date to the last minute. It's not a big thing. It's just a party. You'll have fun."

"Mr Stark, are you trying to ask me on a date to this fundraiser?"

"That depends, Ms Romanoff. Are you thinking about accepting?"


	3. Chapter 3

"Okay. How do I look?"

"Wow. . ."

Lana had never seen her mother look so dolled up before. Natasha had never had a reason.

"Did mama buy a new dress for the ball?"

"Baby, it's not a _ball_. It's a fundraiser."

"Pretty dress, dancing, prince charming sent a carriage. It's a ball, mama."

"It is not a ball, Dots, it's an _event_. Yes, I'm wearing a pretty dress, but I don't think there's going to be dancing."

"A ball _is_ an event. Also, my name is Lana now."

"Okay, baby. Are you bringing Alexei with you?"

Lana heaved a heavy sigh. "Mama. You have to say his _whole_ name."

"Fine," Natasha said as she touched up her makeup in the bathroom mirror. "Are you bringing Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia with you?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Go get him, then."

Lana left and returned with a fluffy teddy bear. "Got him. Morgan said she's gonna let me meet her new cat. You can't tell anyone, because her dad doesn't know about it."

Natasha paused and blinked at her reflection. She hoped the cat was a stuffed toy, but she was pretty sure Morgan had picked up a cat off the streets. Poor Tony.

"Okay," Natasha said, dropping her lipstick into her purse. "Are we ready?"

Lana hit her mint skirt, making the sides fluff up. "Yup."

"Right on time," Natasha said as the doorbell rang.

"I got it!"

As she hurried to her room to grab her cell phone, Natasha heard the sounds of two little girls shrieking and telling each other they looked nice, followed by Morgan coming over Lana's stuffed bear.

She had expected to see Tony at the door too, but was met with Morgan alone.

"Sweetie, where's your father?"

Morgan passed Alexei back to Lana and cleared her throat. She handed Natasha a card. "Mr Stark requests your presents at the MIT haloumi fund-praising dinner and has sent Uncle Hap-- I mean, his show-er Happy to exort you to Stark Industires."

Natasha bit down on her lip to suppress her laughter. Morgan was adorable. "And where is this . . . show-er?"

Morgan pointed across the street. Natasha's eyebrows lifted. Had the man really allowed Morgan to cross the street by herself?

"He came here with me and when Lana opened the door, he went to call my dad and let him know he would be on his way. See, he's still on the phone."

Natasha peered through the windshield to see a man gesturing wildly as he spoke, probably on bluetooth. Locking the front door, Natasha dropped the keys into her purse and grabbed each girl's hand. "Let's go, then, ladies."

Happy abruptly cut Tony off to inform him that Natasha had arrived and then ended the call to get out and open the door for Natasha and the girls.

"Romanoff," Happy greeted.

"Hogan," Natasha replied, climbing in behind Morgan.

In the hall, Tony glanced at his phone in surprise. Happy had just hung up on him. Happy never hung up on him. _Ever_.

It was approximately fifteen minutes later when Happy let him know via text that they'd arrived. Quickly, Tony slipped out of the hall and jumped into the car that was parked two blocks away.

"Evening, Ms Romanoff. You are looking splendid in red."

"It's my colour," she said with a smile.

"Indeed," Tony murmured.

"Can I ask, why did you jump in? Shouldn't we be getting out?"

"Oh, no. Tony Stark is always fashionably late. Happy, drive. Also, these dinners don't feed you. They serve tiny little appetizers and call it dinner. We're going to get some real food while we wait for the fundraiser to begin."

Natasha was stunned. This wasn't what she expected at all.

Half an hour later -- including a trip back home to change both Morgan and Lana's stained dresses -- Happy pulled up outside the red carpet.

"I thought you said fundraiser," Natasha said, peering out the heavily tinted window over Tony's shoulder.

"Yeah, for MIT alumni, hosted by yours truly. No awards show or premier could even hope to hold a candle."

Natasha raised her eyebrow as Happy opened the door and Tony got out, smiling and waving to the photographers. Natasha shouldn't have been surprised. This was easily one of the most well known people on the planet. Any event hosted by home was red-carpet worthy. Tony bent down and gestured for Morgan to get out. She did, tugging Lana along with her. The cameras went wild. Lana didn't mind. She had never been camera-shy and loved the attention. Eventually, Tony reached out his hand for Natasha.

Having never been in the spotlight, always hiding and sticking to shadows, Natasha was uncertain for the first time in her life. Still, she put on a winning smile and rested her hand in the crook of Tony's elbow.

"Ignore all the questions," Tony whispered as he continued walking. Morgan understood instantly and grabbed Lana's hand, dragging her away from the flashing cameras.

Natasha exhaled deeply once they made it into the main foyer. "That was. . ."

"An experience?" Tony offered.

Natasha nodded. "Something like that. You do this all the time?"

"Why do you think I'm hiding out in a middle-class suburb?"

"You look like you love the attention," Natasha pointed out with a teasing grin.

"Oh _I_ do," Tony confirmed. He nodded his head to the pair of children having a serious discussion with a stuffed bear.

"Oh. . ."

"Morgan, why don't you show Lana to your room here? I'm sure she'd like to meet Prince Dinky-Donut-Muffin the third, heir to the the Stark empire."

"Oh, yes! Want to meet Dinky, Lana?"

"Yeah! Alexei says he wants to make friends too!"

Tony glanced at Natasha. "She's the only one allowed to _not_ call the stuffed cat by it's full name."

"Oh, I understand. Dot -- _Lana_ \-- refuses to respond if I don't call the thing Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia."

Tony raised his eyebrows. "As in the assumed heir to the house of Romanov that died at thirteen due to illness?"

Natasha shrugged. "She reads things way too advanced for her age."

"I wish Morgan would learn to read. She's brilliant, but lazy. Still, she's only six."

Natasha nodded as Tony guided her through the double doors to the main hall. Not a single person was seated; everyone was mingling.

"So, any reason you keep calling the kid Dot?"

"Until she met your daughter, she's always gone by Dot. Her middle name is Dorothy. Morgan must've said something incredibly nice about her first name."

Tony nodded slowly. "I'm getting the feeling Lana is a nickname for. . .?"

"Svetlana."

"Pretty."

"I hear your kid's middle name is Howard."

"And?"

"Nothing. I think it's cool."

"Really?"

"Mr Stark, you are talking to a woman who's grandchild's name is Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia. Naming people and things unconventionally isn't new to me."

Tony smiled. "In Lana's defence, at least Alexei _is_ a name. Ever heard of someone called Prince Dinky-Donut-Muffin? The third?"

"Fair enough."

"Mr Stark!"

Natasha grinned as Tony's smile became rather fixed. He turned around and split a smile that made him look a little constipated. "Kathy! Hey, how are you?"

The blonde didn't seem fazed as she corrected him. "Christine. I'm great, and you?"

Natasha's amusement built up as Tony answered with fake smiles and faux enthusiasm. "Good as can be, Casey. What are you doing here?" 

"Working," she replied, holding up her recorder and gesturing to a photographer. "I'm covering the event for the paper."

"Okay. Good. Nice. Um, enjoy the evening, Clara."

Christine's smile grew fixed as well once she noticed the redhead beside Tony. "Hi, I'm Christine Everhart. Reporter for the Daily Bugle." 

Natasha shook her hand, making sure Christine noticed her leaning against Tony. "Natasha Romanoff. Appraiser for Joseph's." 

"Joseph's?" Christine repeated frowning slightly.

"The auction house," Tony said, "Natasha works there. She's actually had a personal hand in appraising some of the items I've donated for auctioning." 

"Oh. That's nice. Have you met Tony's little . . . _angel_ . . . yet?" 

"Morgan?" Natasha said, "oh, she's a sweetheart. Very entertaining to listen to. She's still working on her vocabulary, so I get to hear gems like I've been invited to a halloumi fund-praising dinner." 

Tony snorted. "Sounds like Morgan," he mumbled before smiling at Chrsitine. "Well, it's been lovely catching up, Cara, but I've got people to meet before the evening ends." 

"Yeah, sure." 

"It was lovely to meet you, Clarisse," Natasha said, taking hold of the arm Tony absently offered her. She smiled at Chrsitine before the woman flipped her hair over her shoulder and left. "Bitter ex or. . ." 

"Persistent one-night-stand," Tony said, shuddering. "She's either trying to get together or drag my name. I almost considered asking Pepper out, hoping that if I had a solid relationship, Christine would back down."

"Oh, so you _do_ know her name."

"You're one to talk, _Clarisse_." 

"Hey, I just met her. It's understandable to perhaps hear wrong." 

Tony smiled. "Morgan was right. You _are_ fun." 

Natasha laughed. "Morgan met me after you did."

"Lana told her you're fun." 

Natasha smiled, thrilled to know that her daughter genuinely thought she was fun. "So, are there any other one-night-stands I need to watch out for?" 

Tony frowned. "I can't tell if you're being serious or sarcastic." 

"What about exes? Ms Potts?" Natasha asked, catching two champagne glasses as a waiter walked past.

Tony laughed, taking one of the glasses from Natasha. "Pepper and I never had a relationship like that. Morgan was a one-night-stand." 

"So was Do--Lana, honestly. At least Morgan knows who her mother is." 

"Lana doesn't know her father?" 

Natasha shook her head. 

"Does he know?" 

"He doesn't know he's her father." 

"Wow. And they call me terrible." 

"Shut up," Natasha grumbled once she realised Tony was teasing her. "So, what do you really do at fancy events like these?" 

"Usually, I mingle." 

"But you're not today because. . .?"

"Because I'm entertaining my guest. What would you do if I left you alone?" 

"Hey, wait one second." 

Tony raised his eyebrows in response to Natasha's deep frown.

"You own the penthouse suite." 

"Yeah, so?" 

"Did you send my daughter in the elevators alone with your daughter?" 

"She's six, not incapable. She's used the elevator hundreds of times. Also, the AI system monitors Morgan and controls the elevators for her. It'll never close on her or without her, and it'll never stop on a floor she's not supposed to be on. I can reconfigure the system to monitor Lana if you want?" 

Natasha was too stunned by the implication that Lana would return to the tower more than once to respond. 

"Natasha?" 

"Hm? Oh! No, I was just worried. Are you sure they're all right, though?" 

Sighing, Tony pulled his phone out of his pocket. He tapped a few times before turning it landscape and holding it out in front of Natasha. "They're fine," he said, watching Morgan crash a Lego plane with a Barbie doll sitting in it. Lana fell over laughing. Clearly, Morgan's story was hilarious. 

"Huh. That's nice." 

Natasha spent the rest of the evening -- dinner included -- meeting people whose names she didn't bother committing to long term memory. Eventually, she admitted to Tony that she thought it was time she left the fundraiser. They frowned at Tony's phone as they saw Morgan and Lana fast asleep in Lana's bed, both wearing a set of Morgan's pyjamas each, their dresses hanging neatly on hangers in the closet handles. 

"Wow. Lana's a really good influence on my kid. Morgan would've just tossed the dress in the corner." 

Natasha pouted. "She's going to be such heavy dead weight." 

"You could always stay the night. There's a spare room on the same floor." 

"No! No, I couldn't--" 

"I know how heavy toddlers get when they're asleep, and there's really no need to wake the poor kid up. Come on, I'll get my butler to show you to the room." 

Defeated, Natasha conceded. "So butlers aren't a thing of fiction, huh?" 

"I say butler, I mean loyal employee who sometimes babysits Morgan. She's the one who started this butler nonsense anyway." 

"Right, because the little midgets control every aspect of our lives." 

"Speaking from experience?" 

"Obviously." 

Tony smiled as he led Natasha into the hallway, slipping his phone back into his pocket. "I'd show you up myself, but a host has duties." 

"Of course, Mr Stark." 

"You called, Mr Stark?" 

Natasha stilled. She knew that voice. 

"Yes! Jarvis, please show Ms Romanoff here to the spare room closest to Morgan's." 

Natasha turned to smile at Edwin Jarvis, taking great pleasure in knowing he was just as stunned to see her as she was to see him.


	4. Chapter 4

Tony left them in the hallway and slipped back inside to mingle. Natasha yanked Jarvis out of view of Tony's cameras. "What are you doing here?" she hissed.

"Working! What are _you_ doing here?! Did Wanda send you to spy on--"

"No! I haven't spoken to Wanda in about five years!"

"Then . . . what _are_ you doing here?"

"What, now I'm not allowed to date?"

Jarvis's eyes widened. "You're dating Tony? You _do_ remember that you broke--"

"Shhh!! I thought you didn't know about that!"

"People talk, Nat! Who else would be reckless and brave enough to pull it off? Wait, are you really dating him? He's never mentioned--"

"What? No! No, I'm just his date for tonight. My daughter decided his daughter is her best friend."

"Lana is _your_ daughter?! I thought your kid's name was Dottie!"

Natasha sighed. "How many Romanoffs do you know, Vis?"

"Well, it's two now. Come on, we'd best get going before he comes to check up on why we're still here."

"It's her middle name," Natasha blurted once they were in the elevator.

"What?"

"Dorothy. It's her middle name."

"Oh. By the way, I think it's hilarious that she's befriended Morgan."

Natasha narrowed her eyes at Jarvis. "Why?"

"Now you're forced to spend time with Tony. Morgan will bribe him into visiting you so she can see Lana if it comes to that."

Natasha stared blankly ahead. "Well. This isn't ideal."

"You should probably tell him before he finds them somewhere in your house, you know."

"Jarvis, are you _insane_? I'm allowed to have secrets, you know."

Jarvis raised his hands. "Whatever you say, Romanoff. I'd ask you how's Wanda but . . . Have you spoken to anyone else?"

"We decided it's best to go our separate ways. I kept in touch with Clint and Scott for a while. Lana used to like meeting up with Nicole and Cassie. Somewhere along the line, that fizzled out too. Wanda's with her brother, as far as I know. The other three . . . I'm not sure where they are."

Jarvis glanced down. "Pity. I'd have liked to meet them again."

"Hey, how come I haven't met Ms Potts?"

"Pepper? She's at another event in the Netherlands, representing the company. She's CEO after all."

"Oh. Well, it was nice seeing you again, Vis."

Jarvis smiled. "Likewise, Nat. Sleep well." He called her name once she'd stepped out of the elevator. "Very clever to deliver the coin through Hogan. He didn't suspect a thing."

Natasha smiled as the doors closed. "I thought so too, Vis."

* * *

Months went by before something surprised Natasha again. It was a Wednesday afternoon and Lana was supposed to be leaving with Morgan for their weekly playdate at Stark Tower. Every alternate Friday, Natasha or Tony would host the girls' sleepover at their home. Today, Tony had called her to ask if she could pick the girls up and bring them to the Tower -- Happy had caught a nasty bug.

When she parked up where Morgan indicated, a security employee hurried over to inform her that she was parked in _Mr Stark's spot_.

Morgan handed Natasha a paper.

"What's this?"

"Licence to park wherever you want."

Amused, Natasha held out the paper to the security guard. On it, Morgan had horribly written "Ms Mama is allowed to park wherever she wants" followed by a scribble that was meant to be a signature. Natasha was sure it was Tony's signature below it that made the security guard nod and ask if she needed anything.

"You have to take us upstairs," Morgan stated when they reached the elevators.

"For what? I've seen the two of you run off to use the lift on your own. Several times. In one day."

"Uncle Happy always takes us up on Wednesdays," Lana said, pouting.

"Okay, okay. Let's go."

When the elevator doors opened, Morgan hurried to a small table that held a flower vase and snatched an envelope. She came back and handed it to Natasha with a smile.

"What's this?"

"Treasure hunt!" Lana yelled, grabbing Morgan's hand and disappearing to meet up with Prince Dinky-Donut-Muffin and his subjects.

Amused, Natasha opened the folded piece of paper. She'd expected the wobbly handwriting of one of the girls, but was met with a single printed line.

_Do you trust me?_

Natasha folded the paper back up and walked around. She'd been up to the penthouse suite a couple of times, but never long enough to learn where anything was -- aside from the kitchen and hers and Morgan's rooms. That meant she did a lot of wandering over the next minute.

She eventually found her way to the open terrace. "I must say, Mr Stark, I'm impressed you managed to rope in two six-year-old embodiments of stubborn."

Tony smiled as he stood on the very edge. "I thought it would impress you."

"You can come down now. Consider yourself one point ahead. Come on."

"Is this fear I'm sensing, Ms Romanoff?" Tony teased, grinning.

"Yes, and I'm sensing a lot of meters for you to fall so can you please come down."

Tony waited until Natasha crossed the mid-point between the edge and the doors. "Are you worried about me, Ms Romanoff?"

"No, I'm worried about people accusing me of pushing you off the roof and my plan would be that once you'd die, Ms Potts would be owning the whole thing and the official legal guardian of Morgan -- to whom everything is bestowed in your will. But we know Morgan prefers Lana to everyone and would jump at the opportunity to be adopted by me, leading to my eventual owning of all your assets. Assassination for power, you know how it is, Mr Stark."

Tony laughed. "Why would people think that?"

"Sounds like me," Natasha said, shrugging, "now will you please come down?"

"I don't think so," Tony said, folding his arms and smiling. Natasha saw Morgan in that small movement. Then he jumped backwards.

"Tony!" Natasha shrieked, running to the edge.

Tony smiled at her from . . . a carpet.

"You ass! Did you really build the magic carpet from Aladdin to give me near heart failure?"

Tony nodded. Slowly, he stood up. Natasha watched in wonder as the carpet lifted. "How is it doing that?"

"Magic."

Natasha raised her eyebrows.

"Okay, fine. There's a neural link to the AI -- and I'm using the AI to control the rotors underneath. Come on, it's fun."

Natasha laughed. "I'm not getting on that thing. What if this is _your_ assassination plot?"

"Natasha, why would I murder you? What's to gain?"

"Lana's full loyalty."

"Please. I could do that with you alive."

"Whatever. Come down. I'm going home and you have to watch the girls -- preferably from the safety of your office chair."

Tony held out his hand. "Try it."

"No."

"Don't you trust me?"

"Not in the slightest bit."

"Has anyone ever told you that you're too honest?"

Natasha smiled, thinking of all the lies she had told in the years before Lana. "No, I don't think so."

"Just try it. If you don't enjoy it, I'll donate the thing to Jospeh's."

Natasha's eyes widened. "No . . . no, you don't have to do that, Tony."

"No, that's how sure I am you'll enjoy it. Come on. Not everyone gets a magic carpet ride."

Sighing, Natasha grabbed his hand. "I can't believe you're making me do this in full daylight."

Thirty seconds later, Tony thought there was a high chance he'd gone deaf. That didn't stop him from turning the carpet over and making Natasha scream even louder as she clutched his arm. When the carpet eventually stilled, Natasha risked a glance over the edge.

"Oh, wow."

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

Natasha smiled and glanced at Tony, who was staring at quite possibly the whole of New York. "Yeah," she said, revelling the extremely rare serene aura Tony had, "yeah, it is."

She was quickly distracted by how the carpet worked. Distracted, she forgot her fear of falling to her death. "Did you install flight stabilisers on a real carpet?" she asked before throwing herself over to peer under the edge. Reflexively, Tony caught her ankle. He'd spent too long with Morgan climbing tables wherever they were.

"Something like that?"

"And what kind of power source are you using? I mean, what if this thing does mid-air?"

"It won't," Tony said, "I built a self-sustaining power core." He held tighter to Natasha's ankle as she threw herself even further off to fuller see the underside.

"You mean to tell me," Natasha said, rolling over so she could sit up again, "you broke arc reactor technology, didn't tell anyone, and the first thing you did was build the magic carpet from an old Disney movie?"

Tony smiled excitedly. "Yeah!"

Natasha rested her chin on her knees. "How can they call you the merchant of death?" she murmured.

"Because it's true," Tony said softly, "the company was built on weapons manufacturing."

"You don't have to stay there," Natasha said, scooting over the carpet, "you have this, the arc reactor. You could do so much with it -- so much good."

Natasha found it ironic that the ex-assassin once called the man whose weapons _she_ used, the Merchant of Death. She also found it ironic that she was the one telling him he could be good. She suddenly realised he was talking.

". . . and after Morgan, I just -- I realised I had someone I needed to look after. It was like someone opened my eyes for me, you know? Someone told me that I had to be there for Morgan. I mean, yeah, Pepper would have taken care of her no problem, but I don't . . . neither of us expected Morgan, you know? And Pepper, she's business, not so much family. She's great at her job, brilliant, that's why she's CEO, but family . . . not her thing."

"I know, Tony. Lana's dad is a great guy but he's just . . . hard to break old habits, you know? And his habits aren't exactly child friendly."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "What kind of habits?"

"I have a strong suspicion he's a kleptomaniac."

"Ah. Okay, then."

"They're amazing -- the girls. Lana's a handful at times, but it's better now. I get a little break now and then, whenever she wants to visit Morgan and Prince What's-his-name. I'm glad they met."

"Me too. So!" Tony suddenly said, startling Natasha, "how many points do I get for this?"

"Mmm . . . ten."

"Ten. That gives me a total of fifteen points. Hey! I can buy a request. And you can't say no. You need twenty points to say no and you only have seven. Ha!"

Natasha smiled. "What'll it be, Mr Stark? Weekend babysitting? Drafting your email to Ms Potts about the maintenance money? Speaking to Ms Hill about some problem Lana and Morgan cooked up? Ask--"

"How about dinner?" 

"Yeah, I can make dinner if--"

"No. No, I mean . . . I mean like . . . dinner. Out. Me and you."

Natasha's eybries lifted. "Like a date?"

"Yeah. Like a date."

Natasha took a moment to rearrange her shock into a smile. "Well, I can't exactly say no, can I?"

And that night was the first of many, many dates to follow.

~~|2017|~~

Natasha and Tony had quickly learnt that the first day of school brought on two very energetic best friends. They'd been making bets -- with Happy and Jarvis too -- to decide who had to suffer picking the girls up on the first day. Natasha had lost this year. She mentally prepared herself for the increase in volume as the car door opened. Strangely enough, it was _her_ door that opened to a brunette.

"Morgan, what are--"

"Auntie Nat!"

Natasha blinked and almost rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn't losing her vision and mistaking Morgan. "Cassie?"

"Yeah! I'm in Lana's class! And Nic is in the grade above! Isn't this great! Come say hi to my dad! He was just talking about you this morning!"

Uncertain, Natasha started to say she needed to get home. Cassie wasn't having any of it. Eventually, Natasha followed Cassie through the school parking lot.

"Ma! Look who I found!" Lana excitedly pointed to the girl whose hand she held.

"Nicole? You've grown so much!"

"Auntie Nat! Oh, you have to come and meet my dad!"

Lana left Nicole's hand to go and drag Morgan along. Nicole and Cassie grabbed Natasha's hands and pulled her along. Once they'd both called their fathers, they disappeared to find Lana and Morgan.

The awkwardness was tangible.

* * *

They'd been sitting in Natasha's living room for ten minutes.

The stiff air had become heavier.

"Wow," Scott eventually said, "this is the most awkward thing I have ever done."

Clint snorted. "I seriously expected you to say something nice about the coffee."

Natasha smiled. "Look, I don't drink this stuff. I never saw the need to learn how to make a good cup. Forgive me if I didn't expect to be offering people this death-drink."

"How can you not drink coffee?" Clint asked, "Laura lives on this stuff."

"You have _three_ of those hyperactive little people," Scott pointed out.

"I mean, he's got a point," Natasha said, shrugging.

"And you still don't know how to sit on a chair," Scott said, watching Natasha tap at the armrest she was sitting on.

"Like that's my biggest crime," Natasha said, rolling her eyes.

Now that it was out in the open that Natasha had given them horrible coffee, Clint had no qualms about setting it down with a look of disgust. "You know, I think about using the burner cell now and then."

"Me too," Scott admitted, "but I also keep thinking that I need to save it. We lived dangerous lives. The others are still living it. I know I gave a responsibility to Cassie, to Hope, even Maggie, but . . . if one of you called on that cell . . . I'd make a plan."

"I know, Scott," Natasha said softly, "I think about it too. Oh! I met Jarvis a couple years ago!"

"Wait, as in our Vis?" Clint asked, "Wanda's ex? That Jarvis?"

"Mhm. I didn't expect to run into him at all, but I did and now bam, six years later, I make him babysit Lana -- sometimes here and sometimes where he lives. It's nice. Hey, maybe I can call him some day? That is, assuming we don't drift apart again."

Clint glanced in the direction of Lana's bedroom. "Judging by the way they disappeared in there and never came out again, I don't think we have that much of a choice."

"Wait," Scott said, "so if you don't drink coffee, why do you have it? If I'm doing the math right, Lana's only twelve. So . . . who's drinking the coffee?"

"Boyfriend!" Clint shouted immediately. "Our little Nat-case has a boyfriend!"

"Insulted as I am, I missed hearing Nat-case."

"I mean, we can always just say nutcase."

"Shut up, Scott."

"Who is this boyfriend anyway?" Clint asked.

"Well, he's Morgan's father. We met because of the girls, you know. He's --"

"Oh, he's _here_!" Scott said, hearing a key turn the lock in the front door.

"Nat? Whose cars are in your driveway?"

"Friends, sweetheart," Natasha said, jumping off the couch's armrest and going to help the walking bundle of packets. "I'll be right back, boys."

Natasha grabbed a few of the bags and followed Tony to the kitchen. "I asked you to get something for dinner, not the whole grocery store."

"I went shopping for the whole week," Tony said, opening the freezer and putting the ice cream away. "Besides, I have enough points to buy a request."

"Yeah, and I have enough to say no."

Tony smiled. "Relax. Most of this stuff is going home with me and Jarvis will swing by to fetch some of it too. I asked Happy, but he said he's fine."

Natasha squinted at a box of sad-looking crackers. "Yeah, because Happy's not starving himself with compressed wheat. You know, maybe I should ditch you and date Happy. He won't mind."

"I would," Tony said, catching Natasha's wrist and pulling her towards him.

"Pity. Guess I have to stay then."

"Guess so," Tony murmured, kissing Natasha's cheek.

"Oh! I forgot my friends!"

"I almost forgot, since when do you have friends?"

"Shut up, asshole," Natasha murmured, pulling Tony back to the living room.

"But you love this asshole."

"Unfortunately," Natasha grumbled, "anyway, these are my friends, Clint and Scott."

"Oh, _those_ friends! I thought you guys were imaginary."

While Tony greeted and introduced himself, Clint and Scott stared dumbly. They were both convinced they were asleep and dreaming weird dreams.

After all, neither could forget the coins Natasha had given them, nor where she had gotten them.

They wondered if she had told him she'd stolen the coins -- if he even knew what her past was filled with.


	5. Chapter 5

~~|2022|~~

"I have enough points to buy a request."

"Convenient. I don't have enough to deny."

Tony smiled at Natasha as they sat for dessert at Natasha's favourite café. "I plan it like that."

"Where did this points system even come from?"

"You," Tony said, "I tried to ask you to bring Morgan home one day and to let Lana stay, and you told me favours cost ten points. You said it was a system you had with Lana. Every time you're impressed, you hand out points so she can buy her way out of cleaning her room and things like that. You started this, deal with it. Anyway, I get a lot of points because you're always relieved enough to give them."

"That's because you keep jumping off rooftops only to show off some new kinds of tech. Tony, most people don't get caught by flying broomsticks or whatever when they jump off rooftops."

"That's fair."

Tony's phone dinged and lit up on the table.

"Work?"

"You think I'd bother with work on an anniversary d-- you think I'd bother with work on _any_ kind of outing with you?"

Natasha smiled.

"No, it's Morgan. Look."

Natasha picked up Tony's phone and checked the image. "Oh my God. Maggie's going to kill us. You, me, Scott, the girls, even Happy."

"Nat, Happy's not even at your house."

"True, but he's supposed to call and check up on them every hour. You think we can find a dye that matches Cassie's original hair colour?"

Tony took his phone back and put it on the side of his plate. "She's seventeen. She can take responsibility for her own bad choices. Besides, I happen to think pink's a great choice!"

"Go pink and I'll dump you in half a second flat."

Tony smiled. "Wow, I was getting worried you'd gone too soft dating me for so long."

"Shut up. Didn't you order the ice cream?"

"I did. There's a special treat in the bottom of your sundae, so look out for that."

Natasha frowned. "Last time you said that, there were very realistic looking gummy worms in the bottom of my custard and jelly cup."

"You'll like this one, trust me."

Ten minutes of laughing at the multiple mishaps Lana and Morgan got up to ever since they'd teamed up with Cassie and Nicole later, the sundaes arrived.

A part of Natasha told her to dig through the bottom just to be sure Tony hadn't asked for real worms to be thrown in there, but she knew he wouldn't. Well, not if he wanted to live. Besides, what would people say if they saw Tony Stark's girlfriend mutilating a sundae at a small café in the middle of the night?

Tony's phone rang.

"Happy?" Natasha asked.

Tony sighed and answered. "I told you not to call me unless the house is burning down . . . well, if you know how important tonight--"

Natasha watched as Tony's expressions flew by. Then he dropped his phone into his pocket and grabbed her sundae. "We need to go."

* * *

The house wasn't burning down, but Natasha failed to notice that due to the sheer number of cars parked up on the street, several of them flashing blue and red lights.

"Nat!" Tony shouted, running after her as she slipped under the yellow tape without a second thought.

"Sir, you can't--"

"My daughter's in there!"

"Mr Stark, the place is empty."

Tony stilled. "What?"

He looked up and saw Natasha at Lana's bedroom window. She shook her head slowly. Tony shoved the office off and ducked under the tape. The sight he was met with when he stepped through the splintered door stopped him dead in his tracks.

"They're gone," Natasha said from the hallway entrance, "all of them."

Tony dragged his gaze from the bloodstained handprint on the wall. Avoiding the splinters of the broken laminate flooring and other damage, he crossed the hallway to envelop Natasha before she broke down and collapsed. As he did, he glanced into the living room.

He wished he hadn't seen the stains on the rug and the sofa.

What had happened?

It took twenty-four hours for something to snap inside of Natasha.

"Nat, what are you going to do? You work in an _auction__ house_. I'm one of the most influential people on the planet and that's not even working out."

Natasha turned a heated glare on Tony. "You have no idea what I'm capable of, Stark. Someone kidnapped my children and you think I'm going to sit by in your fancy tower and _watch_?"

"Nat, please just think for a minute. What are you going to do?"

Natasha stopped pacing. She seemed to relax immensely as she turned to smile at Tony. "I'm going to get help -- obviously."

Jarvis, who had been silently following and watching over Natasha ever since he found out about the girls, stood up from the couch, dropping the tea he'd been trying to get her to drink. "You can't be serious."

"I've never been more serious. I just need to find them."

"And how do you propose you'll find them, Romanoff?"

"Exactly what _wouldn't_ you do to keep a gold coin safe, Mr Jarvis?"

* * *

The entire drive back to Natasha's house, Tony wouldn't stop asking questions. Natasha just listened, waiting for him to pause.

He didn't.

"Hey, we passed your house! Why are we driving past?"

"There's a new question," Natasha mumbled under her breath, parking the car in Tony's driveway. Well, parking would be a bit of a euphemism.

Still asking questions that Natasha was no longer listening to, Tony followed her inside.

"Natasha!" Tony grabbed her wrist and stopped walking.

"Sweetheart, I'm a little busy to sit and play twenty questions with you."

"I'm not playing games. My daughter is _missing_. Your daughter is missing. You think this is a joke? Some movie where you get to play hero? You think some solution is going to show up and give you magic powers to help you find some -- some superheroes?"

Natasha raised an eyebrow. "Are you done?"

"Why do I feel like you're not taking this as seriously as it should be?" Tony asked, almost whispering.

"I am _not_ a hero, Tony. I know that. I'm not even close. There are no magic solutions, just like there are no _magic __carpets_. I'm not looking for superheroes. I know they're not real. I'm looking for men that were once my brothers. I'm looking for all the help I can get."

"And how are you going to find them, Nat? You work at an _auction__ house_."

Natasha tugged her arm from Tony's grasp and walked further through the house.

"Natasha," he said, coming to stand beside her as she opened up his laptop, "what are you doing?"

"When Lana was one, I came here. When Lana was two, I saw my family for the last time. Before they left, I gave them each a piece of a -- of my -- of a trophy. I just pray they've kept it as safe as I've trusted them to, and that the brothers got theirs."

"Who are these brothers you keep talking about? What do they do?"

Natasha glanced up from the computer. "They're . . . professionals," she decided. "Have you still got that watch I gave you for Christmas a couple of years ago?"

"I rarely take it off."

Natasha smiled. "Aw, really?"

Tony showed her the watch on his wrist. "Yeah, see?"

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Natasha said.

Tony glanced at his hand. "Hey, where'd it g--" he broke off into an unholy shriek as he witnessed Natasha place it under the table leg and then jump on the table. "You bought me that!"

"I know," she said, brushing the shards aside and standing up again.

"Wait . . . where'd you get that?" Tony asked, staring at the gold coin she picked up.

"From the watch . . . weren't you looking?"

"What the hell is going on?"

"I need to find out if everyone is within close enough range for me to make a conference call equivalent or if I need to contact them one by one. To do that, I'm going to need to activate tracking chips."

"That's a real gold coin," Tony said, glancing at the said coin.

"I know."

"How did you know it was in the watch . . . unless . . . unless you put it there? Where did you get it in the first place?"

"Baby, remember I told you Lana's dad was kind of a kleptomaniac?"

"Yeah?"

"So was I."

"_You_ stole them!"

"Well. That was quicker than I thought."

"For what?!"

"For the thrill. I knew it was something deemed impossible, and I wanted to break expectations. After I got the coins, we decided to part ways. I could've gotten caught. What would've happened to Lana? So I quit. That's why I haven't seen them in years. I quit, Tony. But that doesn't mean I turned my back on them, or that they turned theirs on me."

Tony didn't know what to think, let alone what to say. So he glanced at the laptop. "You've got locations."

Natasha sighed and turned back to the laptop. "I don't believe it."

"What?" Tony asked, surprised to hear a soft laugh from Natasha after what had happened since dinner the night before.

"I don't . . . they're all here, in the city. I can reach all of them at once."

While Natasha patted her pockets down, searching, Tony studied the names on the screen. "Who's Vis? What kind of a name is that?"

"It's a nickname -- and you're telling me that Bird-Man and Dunder _aren't_ the most unusual names on that screen?"

Tony shrugged as he stood up straight. "I'm very wary of people whose names have fewer letters than mine."

"You're a horrible liar, Mr Stark," Natasha said with a smile, glancing down at an ancient piece of technology.

"Oh my God, you have a fossil!"

Something fell with a thud, startling both of them.

"It's just me!"

Both relaxed at the sound of Jarvis's voice.

"Don't you know how to knock?" Tony asked as the man appeared at the doorway. "When did you get keys to my house?"

"I didn't. When you said you had to get something from home, Romanoff, I assumed you meant _your_ home."

"I see that," Natasha said, wrinkling her nose at how scruffy Jarvis looked. "On the bright side of all this bullshit, I happen to have been given excellent circumstances."

"Oh?"

Natasha nodded, holding up the old cellphone. "Everyone's in the city, and that means--"

"Single signal, oh, you're a _genius_, Romanoff!"

Natasha nodded and pressed a button on the cell.

Something buzzed in the room. They all looked around until Jarvis jumped. "Oh, that's mine! Excuse me."

Tony raised his eyebrows as Jarvis searched his pockets. "People other than myself actually call you?"

"Oh, shut up, Mr Stark," Jarvis grumbled, finding the buzzing device and turning it off. "Don't you just _hate_ our burner cells, Romanoff? You never know who's calling."

"Trash can to your left, Vis," Natasha said, tossing hers into the bin.

"Wait wait wait wait _wait_! Jarvis! Jar-_vis_! Vis! WAIT! You know each other? From like _before_ you met in front of me?"

"I used to date one of Romanoff's best friends. They were like sisters, you know. Kind of like Lana and Morgan."

"Wait, hold on. How long have you known each other?"

"Since about 1995 -- maybe six," Natasha said, "I always thought he was a bit of a. . ."

"You called me a twink," Jarvis said flatly, "_to my face_. Several times."

Natasha shrugged. "Water under the bridge. I set you up with Wanda, didn't I? Anyway, we didn't say anything because. . ."

"Because Romanoff's a massive pansy," Jarvis said calmly. "She can behead a man without blinking but cowers at the thought of confessing to the love of her life that she stole his prized possessions and many other crimes."

Tony chose to respond to the part that he understood easiest. "You've beheaded someone?"

"Vis! No! No, I haven't beheaded people, I've just. . ."

"Relieved them of their anterior division," Jarvis suggested.

"You know, Jarvis, I have never seen you this calm before."

"Well, sir, when you're standing ground and repeatedly slapping the woman they call a Black Widow in the face with several insults, you should have already accepted the fact that you might die."

Natasha snarled at Jarvis. "I hope the tension between you and your ex-girlfriend penetrates your kidneys."

Tony raised his eyebrows. "Wow. So my girls are missing, my favourite employee dated a criminal, my girlfriend is a former criminal and I'm just caught up in this mess? Next you're going to tell me Happy's part of your little ring, right?"

Natasha stopped bickering with Jarvis. "Why would I do that?"

"Because it's _true_?" Jarvis said, raising his eyebrows.

"Wait what?"

"He's kidding," Natasha said quickly, "Happy never partook in any of my heists -- Happy never even knew about them."

"But Happy knew you?"

"They dated," Jarvis stage-whispered.

"Vis! For two hours! It was coffee. I needed his thumbprint, that's all."

Tony squinted at Natasha. "What . . . how much effort did you go through to get those coins when you didn't even make any money off it?"

"It wasn't about the money, Tony. It was about the thrill. Now, come on. We have somewhere to be if we want help finding our girls."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now the shit begins, my dear readers.  
Do enjoy :-)


	6. Chapter 6

"I don't like this," Tony said.

"It's gone," Jarvis said from the backseat.

Natasha glanced away from what still stood of the warehouse and looked at Jarvis in the rear view mirror. "Vis, I told you we burned it."

"I know. It's just . . . it never quite sunk in that the warehouse was gone. I made a lot of good memories in that warehouse."

"We all did, Vis. It wasn't easy, but it had to be done. No suspicions, no traces, no clues. We lived like that for a very long time. Some longer than others. Some of them still live like that."

"I know. Doesn't make it any better."

"I know, Vis. I know."

Tony glanced at Natasha, then at Jarvis in the mirror. He still hadn't quite wrapped his head around the kidnapping, let alone what had happened subsequently. He decided not to say anything about it. He turned to look out his window. "Has that van always been there?"

Natasha leaned forward, frowning. "Wait here."

Tony began to protest, but Natasha pointed her gun at him. "You want the girls back or not?"

"Obviously, but what if it wasn't your family holding the other cells? What if it's someone else?"

"Okay, first of all, I forgive you for underestimating me, seeing as I've never actually told you all the things I've done. Second of all, I told _you_ to wait in the car. Not Vis. He's backup."

"I'm always backup," Jarvis grumbled, opening the door. "Do I at least get a weapon, this time?"

"Vis, you packed them. If you wanted one, you should've packed one."

"If I didn't love you, I would have murdered you when you were fourteen."

"Why fourteen?" Tony asked, genuinely curious.

"I told the whole school he had a crush on our principal."

"That was _you_?! I wanted to kill you because you pansted me in front of all the seventh grade girls!"

Tony raised his eyebrows. "Are you really doing this when there are potential murderers is the threatening black van?"

"Right. We will return to this, Romanoff."

"Okay, first of all, _we're_ the potential murderers and we're in an expensive red sports car and--"

Suddenly, Jarvis was pulling Natasha away by her hair. Tony sunk into his seat, wondering what the hell was happening around him. He watched with unblinking eyes as the van's door opened and two men got out, walking up to Natasha and Jarvis. Although their mere appearance seemed to tickle the hairs on the back of Tony's neck and send shivers of fright down his spine, Natasha and Jarvis didn't seem bothered. He opened the window just a crack in the hopes of hearing what was going on.

"Long time, brothers," Jarvis said.

"Romanoff, who's the twink?" the smaller one asked, giving Jarvis a once-over with an unimpressed look.

"Shut your greasy arse the hell up right now, you pathetic looking snake, or I'll break both your twig arms and send you back to the hell-hole you crawled from with a bow stuck to the duct tape I'm going to use to close your airways."

The man grinned. "Good to see you too, Twinkle-toes."

The taller one nodded to Natasha. "Been a long time."

"Too long, Dunder," she said, almost leaping into his arms, waiting for the bear-like hugs she had always loved.

"I thought we agreed on Thunder."

"Is Thor the only one going to get a hug, Romanoff?"

"Loki, we know she's always liked me best."

Smiling, Natasha let go of Thor to give Loki a hug too. "Still causing trouble wherever you go?"

"Always."

"What happened? I thought the cells were for emergencies. That too, I didn't expect to actually see the ruins of the warehouse."

"Believe me, brother, I understand," Jarvis told Thor.

"Assuming Wanda was the one who gave you the coins, did she tell you about Lana? Er, well, she would have been Dot back then."

"She did," Loki said, "what happened?"

"Missing. I went out for dinner and when I got back, the house was a wreck and she and her friends were gone."

"Kidnap?" Thor asked, folding his arms as his eyebrows knitted together.

"Possibly. Most likely."

"Happy -- you remember him? Happy Hogan? -- he was calling the girls every hour to make sure they were all right. Natasha would have gotten back by eleven, but around . . ."

"Nine," Natasha supplied.

"Around nine, he called in the break-in."

"I say we wait for the rest to arrive -- assuming you called everyone?"

Natasha gave Loki a nod.

"Right, I say we wait for them before we start planning and brainstorming. In the meantime, won't you tell your dear brothers who you're dating?"

Natasha rolled her eyes at the twinkling mischief in Loki's eyes. Turning to walk back to the car, she motioned for them to follow her. "You'll like him, Loki. Full of sarcasm sometimes."

"Oh, no," Thor said, "that's not a good sign."

Natasha laughed. She'd missed the brothers more than she realised.

"Gentlemen," she said, opening Tony's door, "my boyfriend, Tony --"

"Stark?!"

Tony jumped out of the car. "You told me your name was Thomas!"

"Disguise! You think I would have told you my real name when I was on the job?!" Loki cried. He turned to Natasha. "Really? _Him_?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Tony asked.

"Nothing. Nothing at all. I just think the twink would've been a better option."

Jarvis placed his hand on Tony's shoulder. "We worry when he doesn't do that. You'll get used to it. There is one effective method of shutting him up that I know of."

"Which is?"

"If you kiss him, he's so stunned by affection, he stops functioning for a few hours."

"Well, we need Loki functioning," Natasha said, "so no one is kissing him, okay?"

"I feel _so_ loved," Loki said, rolling his eyes, "but seriously, out of everyone on this planet, you had to pick Tony Stark. You once called him a Greek God and then proceeded to say you meant Hephaestus."

Natasha winced and covered her face as Tony turned to raise his eyebrows at her. "I'm not even surprised at this point. Model citizen and fan favourite Steve Rogers could actually step out of that car coming up and I probably wouldn't even bat an eyelid."

Not one of them knew how tell Tony he was right.

The car pulled up beside Tony's.

"Sammy!" Natasha cried, running around Tony's car to attack Sam the second he got out of the car.

"Nat-case, good to see you again."

Tony's jaw probably did really hit the ground as Steve got out and walked over to greet Thor and Loki. "So, Natasha found you after all, huh?" he said, looking at Jarvis.

"We sort of ran into each other. It's a small world."

Steve glanced to his side. "Mr Stark . . . what are you doing here?"

"I am having quite possibly the worst week ever," Tony announced, "I mean, could this day get any stranger? What's next? Nicole's father? Cassie's mother? No, wait, don't tell me. Nicole's ex-boyfriend's older brother was part of your gang. Oh, and Happy used to be your getaway driver, right? Let's just see who else I know and let's all drown in the fact that I, who is _the_ most innocent person in the entirety of my whole company, _am __surrounded__ by thieves and assassins_!"

Natasha walked over and quietly shushed Tony.

"Oh, by the way," Jarvis said, "they've been dating since 2012."

Sam snorted first. Then he laughed. He almost started cackling.

"Now what?" Tony asked.

"Nothing. I just saw this coming. When Nat stole the coins. I kinda expected that she'd make good on her nickname and end up seducing her way to the coins and then end up really dating you because you know, things happen. Obviously, that didn't but hey, you're still together."

Tony turned to Natasha. "You know, I always wondered why you never introduced me to your family. I wish I never wondered about it."

"Hey, Vis," Sam said, nodding to Jarvis.

"Hi. How are you?"

"Good. Babysitting Barnes is a handful. We can't take him to museums anymore. He tries to steal stuff."

"Ah. Old habits die hard, of course."

A third car pulled up and from it, Scott and Clint tumbled. "We got the call," Clint said, holding out the phone.

"Hey, boys," Natasha said, hugging them both.

"Hope said to call if you need help," Scott said.

"Oh, you gotta be kidding me!" Tony yelled.

"Oh, so the boyfriend knows, now?" Clint asked, pulling back and shooting Natasha a teasing grin.

"Who else are we waiting for?" Tony asked, folding his arms, "your boss?"

"No," Jarvis said, "my ex."

The entire group fell silent, joyful reunions paused.

"Oh, dear," Loki said, a perfect imitation of Jarvis. On cue, a third car sped into park alongside the other three.

"I brought my brother," Wanda said, gesturing to the silver-haired man that followed behind her, "figured the signal call meant extreme emergency."

Natasha nearly squashed Wanda to death.

"Yeah, yeah, I missed you too, Little Red." Wanda smiled and glanced over Natasha's shoulder. Her smile froze on her face. "Vis."

Natasha let go of Wanda and watched the reunion.

"How have you been?"

"Well, aside from the fact that I've just been called a twink thrice in the last ten minutes, I've been doing pretty okay. Yourself?"

Wanda smiled again. "Nicked a neat birthday gift to me a couple weeks ago," she said, showing off her bracelet.

"Your birthday's in January."

"The bracelet doesn't know that."

"Now that everyone's arrived," Loki said.

"Let's get down to business," Thor finished.

* * *

"Question is," Wanda said, "who's behind the kidnapping? Whoever it was, they broke into Nat's house, presumably with the intention of snatching Dot-- Lana."

"So why take the others as well? Why take _Morgan_?" Loki mused, frowning at the charred floor.

"Money?" Pietro supplied.

"If it were for ransom money," Clint said, "they'd have snatched Morgan alone."

"And they would have asked for the ransom by now," Scott added.

"Thing is, no matter who's behind this," Bucky said, "why would they take anyone besides Morgan?"

"Revenge?" Tony asked, "you guys haven't exactly been saints."

"No," Steve agreed, "but Bucky's right. What reason would anyone have to kidnap Nic, Cassie or Dot-- Lana? No one's supposed to know who we are, what we did or do, what we even look like."

"It can't have been an inside job," Jarvis said, breaking the silence that Steve's words brought. "The only person not in this room that has any inkling of what we did is Happy, and that man is loyal to Stark to a fault. He'd never do anything to jeopardize the girls."

"Unless it _was_ an inside job," Pietro said softly, but he was still heard.

Wanda whipped her head around to glare at her brother. "Every single person in this room would _die_ for those girls in a heartbeat. Don't you dare point fingers at my family, brother."

Natasha glanced around the room. "Look, I trust you guys with my life -- and Lana's. If any one of you," she shot a glance at Pietro, "had any hand in the kidnapping, I'll kill you."

"We know," Sam said softly.

"Where do we even start?" Scott said, sounding hopeless, "we've pulled so many heists, but we've never had to take on a rescue mission. Are we even equipped to do this?"

"We're better equipped than whoever's following the law," Clint told him, "they haven't exactly been stretching the limits to find the girls."

"Clint's right," Steve said, "if your times are correct, we should've known about the kidnapping before you even called us, Nat. Someone's keeping the whole thing quiet. Whoever that is, that's our start. We find them, we might find out who was the intended victim of the kidnapping, Morgan or one of the others. Once we find that out, we know more or less what kind of kidnapping we're looking at."

"So what's the plan?" Tony asked, "or do you just rush in blind?"

"Obviously we have a plan," Natasha scoffed, "and you're not part of it."

"_Excuse_ me?! One of those girls is _my_ daughter. I have been nothing but fatherly to _your_ daughter. I have never once denied Cassie and Nicole anything. I have just as much to be part of this as you do."

"Maybe, but you don't have the skills and experience to be part of it. Your skill set lies elsewhere."

"She's right," Jarvis told Tony, "you'll be helping, but from somewhere safe. We can't have you going missing too."

Tony glared at Jarvis and Natasha in turn. "Just to be clear, when you come to me for help, I make no promises about not laughing in your faces."

Natasha smiled. "If you say so, Tony. Vis, call Happy and--"

"He's already on his way, Romanoff. By the way, Mr Stark, Happy was _my_ getaway driver exactly once. The 1998 Columbia Mascot heist, that was me. I was sixteen and _not_ about to back down from a dare."

"You're all insane," Tony declared, "you're lucky I need your help, or I'd have sent you all to a mental asylum by now."

Natasha smiled as she watched Tony rant and rave.

"Someone's lovesick," Loki murmured, dodging the elbow that came jabbing around near his ribs.

"Oh, shut up, Frostbite!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who we go visit next chapter


	7. Chapter 7

Lana stirred, moaning in pain. Her head spun and as she opened her eyes, her vision swam.

"Lana!" Morgan cried, "Lana? Are you okay? Are you hurt? Talk to me. _Please_. I can't reach you. Lana, you have to talk to me."

Lana groaned and forced herself to sit up. "Well," she said, looking around what she could only call a dungeon, "this isn't ideal."

"No shit," Nicole scoffed.

"What happened?"

"Break in at your place," Cassie explained, "masked guys. You fought back until one of them chloroformed you. Em bit one of them after that."

Morgan smiled proudly. "I did. Are you okay, El?"

Lana shrugged. "I've had worse aches and pains. Although, at least cheerleading cramps are followed by soothing oils and a warm bath. I'm getting the feeling I won't find that here."

Nicole snorted. "Very funny, Lana."

"I thought so. Any ideas, ladies?"

"We've tried breaking out, squeezing out, picking locks . . . you name it. Nothing worked."

"That's because we don't know how to pick locks," Nicole pointed out.

Morgan scoffed. "Remind me again who got you onto the school roof for your Senior Prank Week finale?"

Lana smiled at Morgan -- or in the direction Morgan's voice came from. "We'll get out. If we don't, our parents will come get us."

Morgan dropped her head and sighed. Then she lifted her head. "El, do you know anything about a Black Widow?"

"No, why?"

"Whoever or whatever that is, it's what they kept talking about. Did your mom ever mention anything like it? A -- a programme or . . . or--"

"Or a cover story," Cassie said.

"Oh, come on," Nicole said, rolling her eyes, "you're not still thinking about that, are you? For the last time, our parents were _not_ secret agents!"

"You don't know that for sure," Lana said, "if they were, we'd never know. Isn't that the whole point of a _secret_ agent?"

"What if this is a revenge plot? We're bargaining chips, hostages, leverage."

Lana rolled her eyes as well while Cassie went overboard, spitting conspiracies. "How long was I out for?"

"And hour, maybe half, longer than us. We actually just fell asleep, though." Morgan said.

"How come none of you got the stink-rag?"

"We weren't fighting like you. Where did you even learn that?"

"Learn what?" Lana was genuinely confused, all three could tell.

Hoarse coughing filled the dungeon, echoing off the walls.

"Lana!"

"It's not me," Lana said as the coughing subsided.

"Well, it's not us either," Nicole said, looking at Cassie then Morgan.

"There's someone else down here," Cassie whispered loudly.

Chains rattled near Lana. She backed up against the wall, fear creeping up her spine.

"Hey!" Morgan shouted, straining against her own chains. "Whoever you are, you back away from her right now or so help me God, I'll --"

"What are you gonna do?" Nicole asked, deadpan, "you're just as chained up as the rest of us."

"I think he's hurt," Lana said, edging away from the wall towards the crumpled heap. Eventually, she decided it was safer to tug at the chain on his wrist than try to push him. "Hey. Hey, loser. You alive?"

"Surprisingly," he grumbled, grabbing Lana's hand to pull himself up. Surprised and not expecting it, she scream and jumped back.

"What?" Morgan cried, "what happened? Did you hurt her? I'll kill you! You hear me, I'll kill you!"

Lana smiled fondly at Morgan. She remembered hearing her mother talk about a sister that she'd met when they were both five. She remembered wondering how someone could form a bond like that with a total stranger. Then she'd met Morgan. She'd always thought she'd been close to Cassie and Nicole, but neither held a candle to Morgan. There was just something about the brunette that drew Lana in, activating some mother-like gene in her, some intrinsic need to look after Morgan. Obviously, she knew Morgan felt the same. Morgan was rather vocal in comparison.

"My name's Peter," the stranger eventually said, sitting up on his own and leaning against the wall beside Lana. "Thanks for almost knocking me out again."

"You can dial back the sarcasm, you salty stick of butter, we're all stuck down here."

"I'm Morgan."

Peter squinted in the dim lighting. "Weren't you the one throwing death threats at me a couple seconds ago?"

"Yeah, so?"

"I'm Lana," Lana said softly, glancing at Peter.

"Nicole."

"Cassie."

"Am I the only guy in here?"

"Which reminds me," Lana said, "why are _you_ in here? We were all snatched from my house, so. . ."

Peter shrugged, shifting slightly find some kind of comfort. The chains rattled. "I work part time at a café somewhere nearby. They came in for coffee and I overheard them talking about some 'snatching' or something. They figured I heard and the next thing I know, I'm waking up in the back of a truck. I'm assuming the 'snatching' meant your kidnap."

"I don't remember a truck," Lana said.

"You were out cold," Nicole said, "they must've used more chloroform than necessary."

"Or just enough," Peter said, "you woke up a few minutes ago, right? Clearly, they think you would have been able to figure out where we are if you'd been awake for the trip."

"What gives you that idea?" Cassie asked.

"I watch a lot of movies." Peter smiled, hoping it could be seen. "Also, I've been kidnapped before."

Despite their situation, Morgan laughed. Maybe she genuinely found Peter funny, or maybe she had gone hysterical. Maybe she had even lost her grip of reality. Whatever the case, the sound of pure amusement pulled a smile from somewhere within Lana, until she found herself chuckling softly.

It took less than ten seconds for the rest to join in.

* * *

"You tazed a cop?!"

"In Romanoff's defence, Mr Stark, he wasn't being very co-operative."

Tony shot Jarvis a glare. "That doesn't make it right!"

Natasha rolled her eyes. "Man up, Anthony. This isn't my first rodeo. You wanted to know who I was. Well, here's a trip down memory lane. I don't know what kind of fragile glass doll you see when you look at me, but I will slice the necks of whoever took my daughter with my bare hands. If you can't take it, then suck it up until we get the girls back. Then you don't have to take any of it."

Jaw-dropped, Tony watched Natasha leave, slamming the door shut behind her.

Jarvis inched closer to Tony. "She's never been very good with her emotions, Mr Stark. You've been patient with her all these years. Why stop now?"

"You're exactly like her, so I can understand why you can't see this the way I do. But--"

"Mr Stark, why do you think Wanda and I broke up?"

"What?"

"Wanda and I. We used to be the -- what's the word? -- the golden couple. Even the yearbook rooted for us. We broke up because I wanted out and she couldn't understand it. She couldn't see from my perspective and . . . and I couldn't see from hers. By the time I realised what she was probably thinking, it was too late to go back."

"Why are you telling me this, Jarvis?"

"I don't want the same thing to happen with you and Romanoff. The difference is that she already sees things from your perspective. She just doesn't know what to do with that knowledge. Give it a try, Tony, you might find her all the more interesting. Like I said, she's never been very good with her emotions but with you . . . well, it's the happiest I've seen Romanoff in -- in forever, actually."

Tony sighed as Jarvis left him alone. An hour later, he was standing in front of a TV when the elevator doors opened behind him, unnoticed.

"_Earlier this week, a group of teenagers __were__ reported missing, following an attack at the home of well-known Jospeh's __appraiser__, Natasha Romanoff. Sources say it may have been a planned __kidnapping__ from the start. Four of these teens attended CSS, the fourth an alumna of the school. Twelfth-grade students Morgan Stark, Cassandra Lang and Svetlana Romanoff, alongside CSS graduate Nicole Barton were reported missing the night of the break-in at the Romanoff __residence__. Sources say a fifth has also been reported missing. Midtown Science's star alumnus, Peter Parker, hasn't been seen for the past week. No further information has been disclosed at this time._"

Tony turned the TV off and scowled. In the blackness of the screen he was suddenly faced with, he caught a hazy reflection behind him. He spun around to see Pepper.

"So it's true, then? She's missing?"

Shoulders sagging, Tony nodded.

Pepper dropped her bag on a plant stand that had long ago lost its pot plant and walked towards Tony. "Any idea who the other kid is?"

Tony shrugged. "His name came up a few times over the years. He did the Stark Internship when he was younger. I spoke to him once. I know he lives with his aunt. Brilliant kid."

"How's Natasha?"

"She's . . . handling herself."

Pepper raised her eyebrows. "And you're not with her because. . .?"

"I'm pretty sure she's committing a felony of some kind right now."

Expectedly, Pepper didn't believe Tony. For a moment, Tony wondered if Pepper too was part of Natasha's old family. He quickly dismissed the idea. Pepper would have been in that warehouse if that were the case.

"Pepper."

"Hm?"

"What would you do to get Morgan back? If you could do absolutely anything, I mean."

Pepper raised her eyebrows, finding the question strange. She answered it anyway. "I'd find her. No matter how hard it was or how long it took. I'd find her and I'd put a bullet in the brains of whoever took her in the first place. Assuming I've learnt to fire a gun in this hypothetical situation of yours, obviously."

"Obviously," Tony agreed, "but say we were together. Say we made it work. And this still happened. What if I told you I could find Morgan, but everything I did would be ninety percent illegal?"

Pepper raised her eyebrows again. "Tony. What's Natasha doing?"

"I told you. Probably committing a felony."

Pepper sighed, knowing Tony wanted an answer from her. She just wasn't sure if she should give him her honest answer or the answer she was sure Natasha would want her to give.

"What would you do, Pepper?"

"Tony, I don't think--"

"You'd come after me, wouldn't you?"

Pepper sat down on the sofa. "I would take any chance thrown at me if it meant helping find my kid. Even if it meant straying off the path a little bit. Whatever it took to get her back safe and sound. But I can't -- and neither can you. Tony, we run one of the _most_ successful companies out there. That's what we're good at. You can't--"

"No. That's what _you're_ good at," Tony said, folding his arms. "I've never been business, never. The building and the designing and the tech? Yeah, that I can do. But the business? Not really my place. Hell, why do you think I made _you_ CEO? You're running this thing better than my father ever wished he could. But this isn't what I'm good at."

Pepper leaned back, crossing her legs. "What are you good at, then? And how is it going to help you?"

Tony furrowed his eyebrows.

"Tony?"

"I'm going after her. She can't stop me."

Pepper shook her head. "I don't think that's a good idea, Tony. You may not like the business world, but you don't really have what it takes to be in her world."

"Then I'll _make_ it. You said so yourself. Whatever it takes."

* * *

Nicole sighed. "I just want to publicly declare that if Cassie doesn't shut up with her morbid shit, I'm going to kock her out with her own chains."

"Cass," Lana said, "be a little less negative. And dial back the ominous and cryptic persona. It's creepy."

"But I'm right," Cassie said, "we have to get out of here. Whatever it takes."

Morgan groaned. "If Cass doesn't stop, I'm going to knock myself out."

"Morbid as she is," Peter said, "she's right. We do need to get out of here."

Lana frowned at Peter.

"What?" he asked when he realised it.

"You've seen them."

"Yeah, so? It's not much help considering we might decompose in here."

"No, no, I know that. But they know you've seen them. Why aren't you dead?"

"Gee, Lana, I really wish you could clearly see the broad smile on my face and the grateful expression I have for you."

"Okay, first of all, I _can_ see you. Second, I'm just thinking out loud. If I planned to kidnap a couple of kids for whatever reason, I'd snap the neck of whoever caught me."

"That's a little violent, El," Cassie said.

"Think about it. Peter's not even that badly hurt. Which means. . .?" Like a teacher, Lana waited for one of them to grasp it.

"Whoever has us is inexperienced or maybe even has some moral fibre."

Morgan glanced at Nicole. "Or it means they're a hundred percent sure we're _never_ getting out of here on our own."

"Which is exactly why we will," Cassie said, raising her eyebrows, "I've never met a pair more stubborn than you two. If anyone's gonna figure a way out, just because someone thinks we can't, it'll be Morgan and Lana."

Peter glanced around, making out three figures on the other end of the room. He turned to Lana, who looked pretty relieved that the other three couldn't see her face. Peter knew that expression. He'd worn it before.

"Hey," he said softly, "we'll get out of here. Trust me."

Lana smiled. "Speaking from experience?"

"Obviously."

Lana leaned her head back against the wall. They'd get out. She was sure of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's ya boi Peter Parker


	8. Chapter 8

"OH, YOU BETTER NOT BE IN THAT THING, _DARLING_!"

"I LEFT YOU ALONE FOR ONE HOUR AND YOU GOT INTO A FIGHT!" Tony knew better than to call out Natasha's name while she wore something that covered everything but her eyes. She'd probably shoot him if he outed her identity.

"I LOCKED YOU IN YOUR ROOM!"

"I JUMPED OUT THE WINDOW!"

"Is this really the time for a lover's quarrel, kids?"

Once he spoke, Tony recognised the man backing Natasha as Jarvis. "You shut up!"

Natasha watched -- in anger, amazement or shock, she wasn't sure -- as a red and gold metal suit crashed a few feet away. "I'm in love with a moron," she whispered to herself, unable to comprehend what she was witnessing. The gang she and Jarvis had been battling with saw the armoured idiot as a bigger threat and Natasha had to abandon all her defensive styles to jump on backs and pull people down.

"I heard you," Tony said as he stood up, "don't ask me questions about the suit. I had thirty minutes, okay?"

"Defend your moron," Jarvis told Natasha, taking out the man she was attacking, "I got the back."

Natasha smiled, and she knew that despite the veil, Jarvis saw it.

Tony watched in amazement as the petite figure in black seemed to suddenly appear in front of him, stunning two approaching attackers with the crackling wrist bands she wore. Tony himself was stunned into silence. When Jarvis had said Natasha could 'behead a man without blinking', Tony hadn't paid much attention to it. He didn't actually think Natasha had killed before. Not until he saw her slit a man's throat without even pausing before stunning a second.

Jerked into action when Natasha fell backwards into him and pushed off with a growl, Tony put his creation to good use, firing up the blasters powered by a miniature version of the reactor running Stark Tower.

Natasha and Jarvis both paused to watch the most benign man they knew blast people off their feet. Within seconds, the remaining members of the gang were down -- somewhat alive.

With everyone incapacitated, dead or unconscious, Tony found it safe to open the suit. Almost falling out of the metal armour, Tony marched up to Natasha. "You antagonized them!"

Natasha scoffed. "You can't possibly know that."

"You really think I don't have eyes all over this city? I built my own AI, I'm pretty sure it's believable that I can hack secure systems. What was the need to start a fight?"

"They weren't co-operating."

"So you started a fight and trashed a small field?!"

"No, I broke one of their noses and let them think they kidnapped Vis and I until we got to open land and we started taking them out."

Tony pinches the bridge if his nose. "You're going to be a real handful, love," he murmured, "did you at least get something out if them?"

"Whoever took the girls, it wasn't a petty thief or even a gang whose heist I stole. Pretty much rules out Lana as the intended target. From your side, they wouldn't say much about you. I assume it's because you're money and power -- which depressed and sad soul would strike the biggest businessman in the country?"

"Kids, we got co-ordinates."

Before Tony could respond to the nicknames from Jarvis, Natasha asked who they were from.

"Frosted Flakes. He says he might have found something to help."

"I'm coming with you," Tony announced once he figured out the nickname meant Loki.

Natasha glanced at Jarvis. He shrugged. "Get back in the suit and don't get out until we get back to the tower," she told Tony, "understood?"

"Yes, ma'am."

* * *

Cassie had started to sing. She didn't have a bad voice -- in fact, she had a great voice. The problem was the song she sang. At first, it sounded like a soft and soothing lullaby. Cassie's comforting voice quickly turned chilling without changing a single thing when the others began to hear the words.

_My love, my love, lay here with me _  
_Rest your soul beneath the willow tree_  
_My boy, my boy, have you come to play?_  
_To waste away __in__ night after day_  
_My girl, my girl, where have you run?_  
_You can't escape a burning sun _

Lana shivered. Peter heard the sharp intake of air and glanced at her. Everyone wanted Cassie to stop, to put a halt to the voice of a siren, the words of something far worse. No one dared speak, though, afraid anything louder than Cassie's soft voice would shatter their very reality.

_Stay far, __stray__ far, and keep to your __thoughts_  
_Never speak your name out to hear_  
_Beware, be wary, the beautiful one _  
_The one who bears knives for __fingertips_  
_The one who bears knives __for__ fingertips _

Peter shuddered. Not even Five Nights at Freddy's had disturbed him as much as Cassie's haunting lullaby. He wanted to speak. His mind screamed for any sounds other than the echoes around him.

_My dear, sweet child, have you come to stay?_  
_To lay down here and never wake?_  
_My dear, sweet child, why have you come?_  
_When __I__ warned to never follow the drum?_  
_My dear, sweet child, stand quiet and proud_  
_A __beating__ heart bears sound_

A rattling at the gate cut Cassie off. The sound was harsh after the soothing voice that had previously filled the air, and it startled them all -- Cassie included.

"Mealtime," Peter said, sounding relieved. He was, but not because the food had arrived. It was because whatever trance Cassie had put them in, it was broken. Part of him hoped she'd never sing again, but part of him wished she would, if only to feel that few moments of serenity -- no matter the chills that came with it.

"I got it."

"I swear on my life, Peter, if you say 'I don't got it' one more time, I'm going to strangle you to death with these chains and hang your body on my living room wall."

"You can't reach him from where you are, Em. Let me, at the rate things are going, we'll probably share a living room wall."

Peter rolled his eyes. "I actually do have a plan this time."

"Since I really don't have another choice," Nicole said, "let's hear it."

"Food comes like clockwork. Means they want us alive. Probably means they're gonna want a ransom or something else in exchange for us. Now, if one of us were to . . . die, for example, that would really put a damper on their plans wouldn't it?"

There was silence for exactly six seconds.

"When you say you've been kidnapped before," Lana said, "do you mean like in real life or have you just seen that many movies?"

"Doubting me? Yes to both those questions. How do you think I got out of the first two kidnappings?"

"How'd you get _into_ them?" Morgan asked.

"Wrong place, wrong time. Also, I picked a fight with the wrong people."

"He has a point," Cassie said, "they may not care much for us, but there's enough food to keep us alive long enough to get whatever they want. Peter's right. They can't let any of us die. Who's volunteering? I'm great at stabbing."

"No one is stabbing anyone," Nicole said, "Peter, how good of an actor are you?"

"I--"

"Peter can't do it," Lana said.

"Why not?" Nicole asked, frowning.

"Peter's only here because he saw them at that café. I'm pretty sure they'd _let_ Peter die if he really were."

"That's true. I can't be here for the ransom or whatever. I mean, the richest person I know is Tony Stark and I had like one conversation with him."

"You know my dad?" Morgan blurted.

"Wait, you're _that_ Morgan? Like, Morgan Stark? The same Morgan all the interns wanted to meet? The same Morgan we heard broke every single coffee machine in the whole tower because of hacking? I had a friend who had a crush on you!"

Morgan found it funny.

"Don't laugh! I used to do the Stark Internship when I was much younger. It was fun. I met your dad in my fifth month, I think. I helped him upgrade the AI a little. Indirectly, I mean. I sent him emails with all my notes and I found out he read them when he sent me a form to sign if I wanted to allow him to legally own the ideas or option two which was to co-own the AI as a whole. I got better pay and better care than the other interns after that."

"Oh, Peter _Parker_!" Lana said, "I drafted the email you received because Morgan's dad was too busy ogling the notes. He never even looked at my mom like that."

Cassie snorted. "What was Morgan doing?"

Lana frowned for a second. "Trying to program my laptop to Rickroll me everytime I turned it on. Spoiler, it hasn't worked yet."

Peter was mumbling under his breath. Then he looked up. "Wait, so that means you're Lana Romanoff? Columbia Secondary's poster baby?"

"I am not a poster baby!"

"El, you _did_ kind of win the seventh grade theatre championships in fourth grade," Cassie pointed out.

"So? Morgan entered all the art challenges and won every single one so far. How come _she's_ not poster baby for the school? _Her_ dad's the rich one anyway."

"Don't you like being the centre of attention?" Nicole asked, "isn't that why you did drama?"

"Hey, I did drama!"

"That's what I just -- oh, no, you don't!"

Lana nodded vigorously. "I can do it."

"No. I'm the oldest, I'll--"

"By like half a year," Cassie said, "and you couldn't even lie to my step-mom about your ex-boyfriend visiting you during that one sleepover."

"If it's about age," Peter said, "then I shoul--"

"We've already established why you can't," Morgan said, "they wouldn't even open the door to check."

When Peter gave her a quizzical look -- she couldn't see it but she knew for sure he was giving her that look -- she smiled. "I watch movies too, Mr Parker."

"Is that so, Miss Stark?"

"Everyone shut up!" At Lana's hiss, they quieted immediately. Someone opened their mouth to speak. Lana shushed them before they even inhaled fully. They all listened, hearing nothing. After a few seconds, they heard footsteps. "They've started patrolling the corridor. Only one, though."

"How can you tell?" Peter asked.

"Lana's mom has _the_ softest footsteps," Nicole said, "I still think they're silent. Lana learnt to listen really well from young. She relies on her ears a lot, and we learnt to trust them. Fun story. Maybe later."

"We have to pick whoever's dying now," Lana said, "they haven't been walking up and down all this time. Whatever's changed, it's big enough that we need to be watched closer." Lana stopped talking. Seconds passed before the footsteps returned and left. "On his next round, I'm calling out. If one of you don't start convulsing when the door opens, I will."

"I'll do it," Morgan said, "think about it. It doesn't matter who they wanted or if they wanted all of us. If I'm out, there's no hope of them getting any ransom money."

"She has a point," Peter said, shrugging.

"No," Nicole started.

"HEY!! HEY, WE NEED HELP IN HERE! HEY, _DICKFACE_! ARE YOU REALLY GONNA LET A TEENAGER DIE?!"

Peter raised his eyebrows. "You're good at this," he whispered as heavy footsteps thundered closer.

Whoever watched the door didn't open it. "Is it the Widow's spawn?"

Lana frowned, confused. "_None_ of our mothers are widows, shitface! Can we get some help in here before she dies?!"

"Is it Romanoff?"

Lana raised her eyebrows. "Yeah. She has severe asthma! She's gonna suffocate if we don't get help!"

"Do you really?" Peter asked softly.

Lana shrugged. "It's not severe," she whispered. "Watch this," she added as they heard the key turn in the door.

Lana leaned against the wall, pretending like she was struggling to breathe. She must have pushed it to some limit, Peter thought, because very quickly, her lips seemed to turn blue and her eyes went bloodshot.

When their captor approached, Lana studied him quickly. He reached down to her, but he never got to do anything else. Grabbing the hand in front of her, Lana pulled herself up and thrusted her knee into his gut. Using the chain on her right arm, she swept his feet out from under him. He hit the floor with a thud and before he could get up again, Lana wound the chain on her left arm around his neck and pulled tight until he passed out.

Peter thought she might've killed him.

A second guard bolted in, but Lana was ready. She stood up and before anyone knew what was happening, Lana had a taser pressed to his neck. She'd probably paralyzed him. Judging by the way he convulsed on the floor, Peter thought she probably killed him too.

They were still stunned when Lana unlocked their cuffs. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeet and so the drama begins


	9. Chapter 9

"Okay. So we have corrupted security footage from my house the night of the kidnapping and no leads. That's nice."

Sam groaned. "Every single person I spoke to has no idea who would be, quote, stupid enough to attack the Black Widow's kid. Pf course, it's not like we could show them a picture of the kid without outing Nat and ourselves."

"I started asking about Morgan," Bucky said, "thought the name Stark might ring a few more bells, considering no one actually knows who Nat is. Nothing still."

"Whoever took the kids isn't a petty thief or gang members," Steve said, "it's someone much higher up."

Natasha pinched the bridge of her nose. "The highest heist with my name on it is Tony's coins, and then too, it's only speculation that it's my heist. No one outside this family knows for sure."

"Unless _Tony_ pissed some powerful people off," Scott said, raising his eyebrows.

"You think Morgan was the intended victim?" Thor asked, "why would they attack Nat's place, then? Why not Tony's home, or the tower?"

"They must've watched the girls for weeks," Loki said, "learning schedules and times. Nat, you said they held sleepovers almost every week. If that's the case, then they had to have known Morgan would be there that night. I assume they believed it would be an easy break-in -- easier than an attempted B&E at a place Tony Stark owns."

"There is the question of why they took all four," Clint said.

"So no one rats them out," Wanda said, shrugging, "if the intended victim was Morgan, then Tony would be bound to buy out every cop in the city -- not that he hasn't tried thrice this week -- to identify suspects based on the girls' accounts. On the other hand, if the intended victim was any of the other three, it had to be because they know Scott, Clint, or Nat, which means they'd know that if _one_ of those three girls went missing, we'd pull every thread we could from the others and identify our own suspects. If all the girls are gone, who's witness?"

"True," Sam eventually said.

"What now?" Steve asked.

The door to the bar lounge opened. "Tony's gonna be okay," Jarvis said, "he just managed to fracture his arm during landing. He stays he wants to join us next time again. Pepper's trying to get him to leave the suit alone, but the man's as stubborn as they come. Happy keeps trying to feed him."

Natasha sighed. "I'll go talk to him," she said, dragging herself to the door.

When Natasha arrived in Tony's designated work-space, Pepper quietly tapped Happy's shoulder and motioned for him to follow her.

"Hey."

Tony looked up from a sheet of paper. "Hi. All things considered, you okay?"

Natasha shrugged. "Could do with a little attention."

Tony extended his good arm absently and waited for Natasha to come over. When she took his hand, he pulled her down to his lap. "What do you think?" he asked, dropping the words like kisses on her shoulder.

Natasha studied the blueprints. "I think you're going in way over your head. I think you should take a nap. I promise to sleep and eat properly if you do it too."

Tony turned around on the chair so that they faced away from the desk. "The problem with it is that _it_ didn't break, but _I_ almost did. Clearly there's not enough support on the frame. I should--"

"Tony. . ."

"Nat, this thing is what's keeping me from blowing my top. _This_ is what I'm good at. Building. Jarvis can bullshit his way to the top of a social ladder without even needing to fact-check. Happy's the biggest sap I know and bonds instantly with people he likes. You're incredibly brave and composed all the time. Pepper's brilliant business-wise. But me? I build stuff. I fix things that aren't broken. I don't know how to fix us."

"Tony, we aren't broken."

"I know. But we could be. Eleven years and not once did you decided you needed to tell me. It took the kidnapping of our daughters for the truth to come out. I have every right to hate you. Every right. We're not broken, but we're fracturing."

Natasha opened her mouth, inhaled, and paused. She glanced down at Tony's arm in the sling. "You planned that whole thing to perfectly relate it to me lying just so you could eventually draw attention to your fracture and indirectly demand pity. Didn't you?"

Tony rubbed his nose against her arm, not unlike a puppy seeking attention. Sighing, Natasha put her arms around him and threaded her fingers through his hair. "The interior skeleton is too big. It's not fitted properly for you, hence why you managed to fracture your arm when you fell out of the sky."

Tony looked up at her. "What?"

"The suit," Natasha said, looking at it, "you need to shrink the interior frame to fit you better. Add a small bit of padding or you'll break something next time you fall. Also, work on your landing . . . Iron Man."

"Iron Man," Tony said slowly, "that's kind of catchy. It's got a nice ring to it. I mean, it's not technically accurate. The suit's a gold-titanium alloy, but it's kind of evocative. The imagery, anyway."

Natasha shrugged. "Take it or leave it, love. When media gets involved, you don't have a say in what you're called."

"Fair enough. So, what's the plan?"

"There is no plan," Natasha admitted, "for the first time in our lives, we're lost. Every single lead the brothers found ran dry. Whoever took the girls, they're hiding better than even we once did."

Tony leaned back on the chair, making sure he and Natasha didn't topple over. "So let me get this straight, three world-class criminals find themselves with a daughter each. Not one of them thinks to implement some kind of protection measures? Into the girl's phones, into their fillings?"

Natasha frowned. "I'm taking away your Spy Kids privileges. And we did think about the phones. Lana trashed hers a few weeks ago and I didn't get to transfer the software to the new one you bought her for her birthday. We found the other phones on a old path leading to Florida. Wanda and her brother followed the trail all the way to Florida. Nothing. Vis has been on Stark Industries' systems with Pepper day and night, trying to pick them up via facial recognition. We really have nothing."

Natasha glanced down at Tony to see him frowning into the distance. "What?"

"When I met them all at that warehouse, Scott and Clint arrived together."

"Yeah, so? They might actually be tighter than Wanda and I. Sometimes I worry for Laura and Hope. What about it?"

"No no. They arrived together. How many phones did they have between them? One, right? Where did the other one go?"

"I counted the locations. They added up," Natasha said.

"Then maybe the girls were still in the city then. Maybe they still _are_ in the city, we're just not looking in the right places."

Natasha stared at Tony for two seconds minimum. "You're a genius," she said, scrambling off his lap and sprinting away.

* * *

The others watched -- in shock, amazement or fear, they didn't know -- as Lana slipped and slid on the wet floors and took out five captors in less than ten seconds.

"Ladies, I'm gonna need every rubber band we have between us."

Stunned, they wordlessly pulled two or three hairbands off their wrists. Lana tossed them each a taser she pulled from the guards. "Tie it around that, just below the triggers. Trust me. Parker, that backpack still in once piece?"

Peter nodded. "Yeah."

"May I?"

He handed her the bag and watched her drop the tasers with rubber bands into the bag. "Can I asked what the plan is?"

"Electrocute the whole place. Anyone with a pair of scissors? A nail clipper? Tweezers? Pliers?"

"Swiss Army Knife?" Peter offered, "it's in the bag."

"Perfect. Okay, here's the plan. Parker, you've done this before, right? Escaped a kidnapping?"

"Yes."

"Good. You take the lead. Nic, you bring up the rear. I'll meet you outside

"Ell--"

"_Trust me_, Morgan. I'll meet you outside. I promise. You have an hour to get out. Get as far as you can from the place. Parker, you're going to flood the place. Take this and look after them."

Without any further instruction, Lana turned and left. Peter glanced at the taser Lana handed him. "Is she always like that?"

"No," Morgan said, watching Lana disappear around the corner, "I've seen her like that maybe twice. Taking control and dishing out instructions. She usually doesn't remember doing it. Whatever the case, she's always mostly right."

"Always mostly right?" Peter asked, "how almost mostly?"

Morgan shrugged. "There's a ninety percent chance whatever ass-backwards plan she cooked up will work. There's also a ten percent chance she may kill herself, us, or everyone."

"Okay, time to move," Peter said, grabbing Morgan's hand -- she was closest -- and pulling her along. Nicole snatched up a forgotten taser and dashed back into their cell.

Thundering footsteps echoed through the hallway.

"Nic!" Cassie cried, held back by Peter as more men marched towards them.

Nicole stumbled into the hallway and ran. "Run!"

"You went back for a nightgown?!" Peter yelled, already starting to sprint.

"We'll need it!"

"It's soaked and filthy!"

Nicole rolled her eyes. "Just run!"

Peter led the girls through the building, feeling like he was in a maze. Thankfully, they weren't met with any dead ends.

"Gate!" Morgan cried, grabbing Peter's sleeve and jerking him into a side hallway. Cassie followed, Nicole still at the end.

Morgan and Peter grabbed hold of the gates. Once Cassie and Nicole were through, they pushed the gates and closed the lock. One of the men grabbed hold of the nightgown. Nicole wrapped the sleeve around the bar of the gate and tazed it.

"Okay, I concede. The gown was needed."

Pushing the rubber band up, Nicole tucked the taser into the gown and smiled as the bolts travelled over the soaked gown and into the water. Cassie grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the small puddle.

Eventually, they broke out into bright sunlight. The sounds of gushing water filled their ears.

"How did she know--"

"Doesn't matter," Morgan cut Peter off, "just do as she said!"

With Peter and Morgan on one side, Cassie and Nicole on the other, they lifted the dam gates just a little and watched as the building flooded. The air filled with screams and cries. Cassie was sure the air was crackling.

Morgan recognised Lana's laughter as she saw the girl climb up onto the roof. She laughed as the wind whipped her hair around and she avoided the water she had turned lethal. Her clothes were ripped beyond repair and almost fully bloodied, but judging by the springs in her step, Peter concluded that the blood wasn't hers.

"So that's what she did with the tasers," Peter murmured, watching Lana in awe, "that's some special kind of genius."

"Don't get comfortable. It's very rare."

"Shut up," Morgan said, glancing away from Lana to throw Cassie a mock glare.

"Just one question," Nicole said, "how does she plan to get from there to here without jumping into electricity water?"

"Open the gates!" Lana cried, cupping her hands around her mouth.

Wildly, Morgan gestured to the gushing water.

"Open it _fully_!"

"She's insane," Peter concluded, "the force will tear the building to shreds."

"Well, if she's going to die by electrocution, we might as well let her do it her way."

"You seem chipper," Peter commented, grabbing hold of the same lever as Morgan again.

"I've practically lived with her since I was six. It doesn't get any better than this. Ready?"

"On three," Peter said, nodding to Cassie and Nicole.

"One -- two -- three!"

With a hard push, the gates gave way and the entire dam gushed forth. Like Peter said, it tore the building apart. To their great amusement, they found Lana riding the deadly wave with a door.

"Titanic could never," Cassie said with a laugh when they witnessed the wild waters toss Lana off balance. They didn't panic, seeing as she'd jumped to safety.

"Wow," Peter said when Lana approached, "I didn't think people could access that level of crazy anymore."

"Oh, it was nothing. I've always wanted to cut and strip several electric cords, leave active tasers laying around and flood a building filled with psychotic kidnappers and suspiciously trained people and then almost die by surfing lightning waves."

Peter rolled his eyes. For the first time, he could properly see the girls. "Oh, was it a night time kidnapping?"

Morgan glanced at her Hello Kitty shorts. "This is fashion."

"Is _that_ fashion?" Peter asked, pointing to Cassie.

"Hey, it's _comfortable_. I was never meant to be seen outside the house." Cassie defended her pinstripe grandpa pants fiercely, folding her arms and turning her nose up.

Peter laughed softly. "Right, and I assume the grandma's-pillow-case top wasn't meant to be seen either?"

"Okay, look. I've been holed up for who knows how many days. I like to be active. I have the sudden need to do a ridiculous workout. If you don't shut up, I'm going to beat your ass so hard, you'll become the vegetable hobo you look like."

"In my defence, I was in there like three days longer than you."

"I don't care, it--"

"Lana!" Nicole cried, rushing to move aside the tangled mess of red curls from Lana's face.

Morgan turned away from Peter and her amused smile flew off her face. "What happened?"

"I don't know. One second she was laughing at Cassie's stupid pants and the next, she collapsed."

"Over-exertion?" Cassie asked, kneeling beside Morgan and looking at Nicole.

"I'm no expert," Peter said, folding his arms and standing at Lana's head, "but it might have something to do with the _freshly_ bloodstained grass over there."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao wtf is Lana on?


	10. Chapter 10

They left before anyone else somehow made it out of the building. Lana's binding was haphazard and poorly done, but they needed to tie the wound up before moving. Cassie was still bitter at having her favourite pants turn into shorts and a set of bandages.

Morgan had worriedly walked as close as she could to Peter, who was carrying Lana, without tripping over him or tripping him up.

After what felt like ages, they came across an empty farmhouse in the middle of a massive field. Nicole broke the window of the back door and shoved her hand in to open the door. While Peter headed upstairs with Morgan to find a place to lay Lana down, Cassie and Nicole raided bathroom cabinets and bedside tables for anything to help. Morgan laid out towels on the bed, knowing they'd put Lana to sleep in the same bed once they were done.

"Ever done this before?" Morgan asked softly.

"Not for other people," Peter admitted.

Nicole had left once she'd dropped everything she could find on the other side of the bed. She said she'd go and see if she could find something to eat. Cassie went in search of a change of clothes for them.

The house seemed abandoned, like whoever lived there hadn't had enough time to pack before leaving. Not even a lot of dust had settled yet. The longer she thought about it, the more Nicole began to wonder if the house belonged to a family who'd left on vacation somewhere.

"For yourself?" Morgan asked, "how bad is it?"

Peter shrugged. "Depends on the cut. Sometimes there's nerve damage, so I don't even feel it."

"I had stitches once. But that was in a proper hospital and with proper doctors, so I had anaesthetic."

Peter glanced up to grin at Morgan. "I've never had a doctor do stitches for me in a hospital or anything of the like."

Morgan paused in braiding the second half of Lana's hair. "What do you even do? And don't say you get into a lot of fights. You used that lie already."

"It's true, though! Where'd the scissors go?"

Morgan passed Peter the scissors.

"Its true, I really do get into a lot of fights."

"How come we've never heard about it?"

"Which respectable journalist wants to write an article about some kid in a red-and-blue, spider-themed costume that "randomly" beats petty thieves up? I mean, does that even sound real to you?"

"A spider costume?" Morgan chuckled, twisting crinson locks between her fingers, "really?"

"Its for the aesthetic, Morgan. Besides, I went with it after I managed to create synthetic webbing."

"I'm pretty sure you'd get a BuzzFeed article."

"Oh, ha ha. Very funny."

Morgan smiled. "When all this calms down, maybe you can visit the tower when I'm there. I'll give you a tour of the labs. You could upgrade from 'costume' to 'supersuit' in like, a day."

"Sounds fun. You sure your dad's gonna let some random kid into Stark Industries?"

Morgan laughed. "Okay, first of all, you were the best intern the company has _ever_ had, and the internship program's been running for a really long time. You helped build the AI running the entire building, you know that. Second of all, I'll just say you're the one that helped us get out. You're my hero. Not even Happy can resist the Morgan Stark Puppy-Dog Eyes Technique."

Peter smiled. "Pass me the bandage."

Morgan reached over Lana and grabbed two badages. "Which do you want?"

"Mm. . . the bigger one," Peter said, taking the bandage from Morgan's left hand.

"How often have you done this?"

"What, stitches?"

"Mhm."

"About three or four times this year alone. I don't really keep track."

"Wow. Why do you do it? The fighting."

"Someone has to."

"Peter, that's what the cops are there for. They--"

"They're not here, are they? They're not helping _us_, are they?"

Morgan kept silent as Peter bandaged up Lana's cut. Carefully, he lifted her off the bed and motioned for Morgan to snatched the bloodied towel away. Pushing all the things Nicole and Cassie had found to one side, Morgan tucked Lana in and left behind Peter, closing the door halfway.

"What's the worst injury you got doing all your wierd spider-vigilante stuff?" Morgan asked as they walked towards the stairs.

Peter paused and pulled the collar of his t-shirt down. "Bullet wound. It was a bad shot. There was no exit wound, so I had to find and pull the damn thing out. Didn't help that you can't exactly see your own collarbone."

"Looks painful," Morgan said, staring at the scarred skin.

"I don't remember the feeling."

"Can I--?" Morgan reached out, hesitant.

"It's just a scar," Peter said with a laugh, "like any other kind."

"I know, it's just . . . The closest I've ever been to a gun was Happy's stun-gun. So I've never actually seen a bullet wound before." Morgan smiled as she fixed Peter's t-shirt. "If Cass managed to find a replacement for her brand new booty shorts, I'm sure we can get you a change of clothes. You think they'll mind if we use their showers?" Morgan wondered, starting to mumble her thoughts to herself as she walked down the stairs.

Peter shook his head. "What a strange girl," he murmured before followed down to see if he could help Nicole.

* * *

The entire building was quiet. Bucky tackled Natasha before she took another step.

"Hey! What the hell?!"

"There's something off about the building," Bucky said, pulling Natasha to her feet.

"She's right," Steve said, "it shouldn't be this quiet. Look at it, it's been flooded."

"Guys, I'm seeing dead bodies," Sam told them over the radio.

"How many?" Natasha asked.

"A dozen or more near the south gate. I'm gonna check it out."

"Don't get too close," Bucky warned, "and stay out of the water."

Rolling his eyes, Sam ventured closer to the gate. He knew it was probably ridiculous, but he still avoided the water, stepping on dry portions of the floor. When he got to the gate, he grinned. "So, someone fried everyone in the building."

"_Everyone_?" Natasha asked.

"Most likely. Judging by what I have here, someone with enough brains managed to flood the place and leave active tasers all over. I'm sure it's fine now, the batteries have run out. Probably a really long time ago."

"Watch out for exposed electric cables," Bucky said, "just in case. I used to do that on escape routes if there were water leaks nearby so anyone following me wouldn't make it very far."

"Got the gate open."

"We're on our way," Steve said, motioning for Natasha and Bucky to follow him. To appease Bucky, they all stayed out of the water.

"Split up, keep in t--"

"No," Sam told Natasha, "we stick together. Something about this place is creepy, and its not the hundred dead bodies. Whoever flooded the place has to be some kind of mad evil scientists -- like some Moriarty or Lex Luthor level."

"Fine. But you have to shut up."

"I make no promises."

Steve rolled his eyes. "Let's move. The co-ordinates led us here, we need to find the girls. Bucky, you-- Buck? Where'd he go?"

"Bucky?" Natasha called, glancing up and down the hallway.

"They're not here!" Bucky shouted.

They headed in the direction Bucky's voice came from. They found the cell, Bucky standing a few feet in. Natasha walked in and looked around. Bucky watched Natasha as she took a deep, shaky breath. Her eyes were fixed on the chains -- specifically the ones wrapped around a body's neck.

"There are five sets," he told her, "the boy on the news, Peter or something, he must've been with them. Maybe he got them out."

"Or maybe something worse has them. None of those kids are killers. Maybe if it had just been the one body here, I'd have believed it, but the whole building? No."

"Nat, it could've been the kid. We don't knkw anything about him. He--"

"_You_ don't know anything about him. For four years, he was in and out of the tower daily. I saw him every time I dropped off and picked Lana up. I saw him everytime I visited the tower, every time I left the tower. Every time I went down to check on the kids in the internship program. So, yeah, I may not know a lot about him, but I know enough to know that whoever killed everyone in here, it wasn't him _or_ the girls."

"Vis got a satellite scan of the building," Steve said, "aside from us, there's no life at all in here or in a ten-mile radius."

"This is the kind of stunt I would pull," Natasha said, "the kind you and I got up to when Sam distracted Steve."

"When Sam what?" Steve said, glancing at Natasha and Bucky, "when?"

"Remember when I told you I needed you to come and play good boy in front of my grandmother so she believed I had good influences in my life?"

Steve thought back to when he used to visit Sam's home regularly. "The vandalsm on the Art History museums happend then. I figured it was you."

"Actually, that was Wanda and Scott. We did the mob raids the same week. We knew the history vandalsim would make bigger news. Point is, we went deep in and took out entire organisations wherever we went. We left behind messes like this. Multiple murders -- _mass_ murder -- theft, arson, you name it. But I was twenty-five and I'd been doing crazy stunts for ten years before. The oldest, Peter, he's nineteen. I'll bet he's never done anything close to a _robbery_ before."

"Great," Sam said, "so who's going to break the news to their fathers?"

"Shit," Steve whispered, remembering that Tony, Scott and Clint were waiting on the result of the trip to Rochester.

"I'll tell them," Natasha said, pressed her hand to her head, "I have to tell Tony, anyway."

"You'll have to wait on that," Jarvis told them, "the brothers fell into a trap in Syracuse. I know its almost an hour out but, um, Tony just took off and--"

"Tell the brothers I'm on my way and tell Tony to stand down," Natasha said, heading back the way they'd come.

Bucky grabbed her arm, holding back as Sam and Steve ran through the building. "We'll find them, Nat. The girls, that kid, our daughter. They'll be fine."

Natasha blinked. "How did you. . .?"

"Surprising how you think I wouldn't know my own kid," Bucky said, throwing her a wink, "we better hurry if you want to save your boyfriend's ass."

* * *

"Now _that_ was a dinner," Cassie said, leaning back in her chair and sighing contently. "And it was completely free!"

"You're welcome, Cass," Nicole said with a small smiled, "Lana, how do you feel?"

"A bit funny, actually," Lana said, frowning, "I assume everything worked out?"

"You really don't remember?" Peter asked.

"There are some hazy memories. But I'm not quite sure. I know we flooded the building and I set the live wires and tasers ready but in between . . . not so much."

"El, you were _covered_ in blood," Morgan said, "at first, I thought it was all yours. Then you were jumping about on the roof so I fugured it couldnt have been. You passed out when you reached us and Peter found your wound."

"Probably a stab wound," Peter said, shrugging, "it wouldn't have been that serious if you'd bound it as soon as it happened, but I don't think you even noticed it."

Lana shook her head. "No, I didn't. You think anyone survived?"

"Maybe," Cassie said, shrugging, "definitely not the ones whose blood you were wearing though. Where did you even learn all this? Four weeks ago, you got Nic's ex to confront the bully that wasn't even that threatening. You've never been one for fighting."

Lana shook her head again. "No. I electrucuted them all. I don't remember fighting anyone."

"Do you remember choking one of them to death with the chain?" Nicole asked.

"No."

"That's how you got us out of the cell. You strangled one and tased the other, then unlocked the cuffs. After that, you went boss-mode and formulated a whole plan that got us out."

"I thought Peter got us out?"

"I just did what you told me to, Lana. Without you, I doubt we would have made it past the cell door."

"I think I need to lie down."

Slowly, Morgan helped Lana to the couch in the living room. Lana couldn't climb the stairs again. Peter quietly told Cassie he'd tale her back up once she was too far asleep to feel any pain.

Half an hour later, the four of them sat around the coffee table, Morgan leaning against Lana's couch, as they played a card game.

"Hey, what suit did we say Stacie is?" Cassie asked.

"Hearts," Nicole answered.

"No, hearts is Skipper. Stacie is clubs."

Peter threw the box at Morgan. "You do this all the time. Stacie is diamonds. Clubs is _Barbie_."

"Oh, shit," Cassie said, "I thought diamonds were Chelsea."

"This is a disaster," Morgan laughed, tossing her cards on the table.

"I thought I was winning!" Nicole said.

"Was I the only one keeping track of the suits?" Peter asked.

"Dad. . ."

Morgan glanced behind her when Lana started mumbling in her sleep. "Huh. She usually calls him asshole."

"What?"

Morgan grinned at Peter's confusion. "Lana's a result of a one-night-stand. We think that's why she and I connect so well. We share that. But anyway, sometimes Lana dreams that her dad's around or that he knows about her. In most of them, she kinda thinks he left her mom. Don't know why. Can't wait till she wakes up. It's usually a funny story. You'll see."

"Dad, look out!"

"Doesn't _sound_ funny," Peter muttered.

Morgan turned around fully to watch Lana carefully. "Hey, you think it's true that people respond to you if you aske them questions while theyre dreaming?"

"Only one way to find out," Cassie said, shrugging.

"El, what's happening?"

"Dad's hurt. Help him. Dad . . . daddy, please don't go."

"Well, that's not terrifying at all. You think she's psychic?"

"I think whatever happened in that building affected her worse than we thought," Nicole said, "she's always had strange dreams, but they've always been the fantasy dreams of a child. No one ever got hurt -- especially not someone she's never met."

"DAD!"

Morgan jumped back as Lana sat up sharply. She sat down on the couch and softly whispered to Lana.

"What happened?" Lana asked.

"You don't remember? You were dreaming, about your father."

"I don't know my father," Lana said, shaking her head.

"I know, El."

"But I felt like I knew him. Maybe not forever, but for a really long time. I knew him and I loved him -- and he loved and knew me. But he was hurt. I don't -- I don't know."

"I, for one, think this is cause for celebration."

"Em's right," Cassie said, "El just had her first real nightmare!"

Lana threw her cushion at Cassie's face. "Shut up! It wasn't a nightmare, it was just str--"

"PILLOW FIGHT!"   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is on fire


	11. Chapter 11

Natasha swung under the bridge, avoiding the gunfire from above. She tumbled haphazardly to the ground and landed so hard beside Bucky, she dented the car door.

"You good?"

Bucky rolled his eyes. "You act like I've never been shot before."

"Well, excuse me, but it's been over a decade since I was last in the centre of so much action. I may have forgotten how high our tolerance is. Got a bind?"

"No. Didn't think I'd need one."

Natasha glanced at the bullet hole in Bucky's shoulder. "I've never been more tempted to let you bleed out," she grumbled, standing up and breaking through the window with the barrel of Bucky's rifle. Once she got the window out of the way, she pried open the door.

"What are you doing?"

"Ruining someone's ancient piece of crap car," Natasha said, repeatedly whispering apologies to the car as she ripped out the seat coverings.

"Oh, you're so smart."

"You're such an idiot."

Natasha rolled her eyes and tugged at Bucky's jacket. The radio crackled with harsh static before Wanda started yelling.

"Tony's down! I-481, westbound, about a hundred miles from the bridge!"

Bucky took the ripped fabric from Natasha. "I can tie a temporary bandage, Nat. Go."

"Thanks."

Natasha started running out from under the bridge. "Hey, Wilson! Got space for a passenger?"

"I should get paid for busting my tech with your heavy ass," Sam grumbled.

Natasha grinned as Sam swept her off the street, headed down the highway.

"Don't drop me," she warned, letting go of Sam to fire at the men approaching Tony. Sam dropped her off beside the fallen suit of armour and circled back to protect her and Tony. On the other side, Wanda was enjoying herself with the blaster Tony developed with and for her. She loved the crimson blasts far more than the bullets and blades everyone else seemed to prefer.

Natasha resorted to breaking the faceplate off. Tony would cry about it later, but she didn't mind. She would take whining Tony over dead Tony anyday. Hesitant to recieve an answer, Natasha held her finger under his nose. Every muscle in her body relaxed when she felt his breath.

"Okay, now what, Mr Stark? Tell me you built some kind of protocols into this thing for emergencies."

Natasha fiddled around with what she coukd reach of the interior from the neck. Nothing budged. Tony was unconscious and trapped in the suit. Eventually, she unhooked the helmet. It dropped beside the faceplate.

Natasha was convinced she could see a flickering light. Knowing Tony was the type to prepare for whatever he could see coming, Natasha decided to fix the helmet around her own head. Once the faceplate was back in position, the helmet came to life.

"Woah," she whispered, suddenly met with the entirety of Tony's tech in front of her eyes.

"Afternoon, Miss Romanoff," a horribly warped voice told her.

"Do forgive me," it said in a woman's voice. It continued in Jarvis's. "My synthetic voice is not quite finished yet."

"Got a name?"

"I believe it might be Seb. I am the Stark E-Brain."

"Of course it would. Can you give me a read on Tony's vitals?"

"Yeah," Pepper's voice told Natasha, "you just have to aim the helmet at Mr Stark, thanks."

Natasha watched as screens flew by with diagrams and charts. If they slowed down, she'd be able to read it. She suddenly understood why Tony seemed incredibly smarter than her when she perfectly understood what he was up to every time she read through his notes. Everything that she understood and processed, he did in probably a quarter of the time.

"Not stable, but not yet critical." The voice belonged to Jarvis again. "He needs immediate medical attention."

"Shit."

"Problem?" her own voice asked her.

"No. I just need a car."

"I can remotely pilot the Stark jet to pick you up. It'll be here in five minutes."

Natasha blinked. "You could've led with that!"

* * *

"Peter? Why are you still up?"

Peter looked up. He walked around the table. "You look like you've seen a ghost, Morgan. Why are _you_ still up?"

"Can't sleep. Can I help you with . . . whatever it is you're doing?"

"Uh, yeah. I'm just trying to map out our way back home."

Peter walked back to the table, Morgan following behind. He turned up the brightness on the desk lamp and presented the map to Morgan. "We're somehwere here, near the Lynch Woods Nature Park. We need to get onto the 390 to Syracuse and we should be able to follow it all the way back to--"

"New York," Morgan said, looking at the little tack Peter had placed. She put her mug down in Vermont. "We're a long way from home, huh?"

Peter shook his head. "I didn't think we'd come so far."

"Still feels like yesterday." Morgan leaned against the desk, tightening a borrowed robe around her. "We had a bet going. We were convinced that night would be the night my dad _finally_ proposed to Lana's mom. I wonder if he did before they found out we were missing. It was one of our better evenings. We didn't take half an hour to choose a movie, we unanimously agreed where to get our snacks, we had a roster going of who would answer when Happy -- he's the forehead of security and one of my dad's best friends, you know him, I think -- when Happy called to check up on us. We actually broke one of the windows and decided we'd blame the four-year-old neighbour. It was a great evening." Morgan scoffed. "_Was_."

"I wish I could relate, but I was flipping burgers so. . ."

Morgan smiled. "How come you never tried to get a job at Stark Industries?"

Peter shrugged. "I didn't think I'd get it. Im just a kid from Queens, Morgan, I'm not some fancy businessman. I wouldn't know how to manage my own computer properly, let alone a work station. I mean, yeah, I'm smart. Obviously. But I haven't been to college. May, my aunt, she can't afford it. I don't belong in an office in the most expensive building in the city. I don't know how to run things."

"Can I tell you a secret?" Morgan asked, grinning. "My dad can't run shit. Didn't you ever wonder why he made someone else CEO? A lot of people thought she slept with him to get it, but the truth is that I was celebration sex. My dad knew she was better to run the company than he was. He'd die in an office. He has his lab and he builds and designs and creates. He sparks creativity on every floor he visits. How's this, if I promise to get you an interview for a position in the company, do you promise to show up and try to impress? You won't even have to bring anything other than your brains and mints. And maybe some ideas to pitch."

Peter stared at Morgan for a second. "Okay, Miss Stark. If you get me a job interview, I promise to make an effort to get the job. But you're not allowed to convince anyone to give it to me. I want to earn it."

"Consider it done, Mr Parker."

"So. Why can't you sleep?"

"Damnit," Morgan whispered, picking up her mug and turning around to face the map.

"You were hoping I wouldn't ask, right?"

"Mhm."

"But I did. So?"

Morgan sighed. "I can't get it out of my head."

"What?"

"Lana. The way she just . . . I wouldn't say snapped but . . . snapped. It was like I didn't even know her. Whoever she was, that wasn't the same sister I knew when they put a bag over my head in her house. I can't get the image out of my head. There was ice in her eyes. I could see it across the room. She wasn't my Lana. I don't know how to explain it, Peter. It was like someone flicked a switch and she was someone else. Someone trained. Like she'd done it before when I know she has never even actually properly fought anyone before. I don't know, Peter."

Peter watched as Morgan sighed and put the mug down again. The cocoa spillled over, staining a nearby city. "Hey, what if we took the eighty-four?"

"Through Elmira?" Peter asked, flicking cocoa off the city's name.

Morgan followed the road with her finger. "We follow that route down through Scranton as well. If we let Nicole drive, we should make the trip to New York in three and half to four hours. Maybe two if we jack the right car. Although . . . if we can find a good garage or the right tools, I could probably make a few alterations to any car we get. We get Nic behind the wheel after I'm done and we might just get home before breakfast day after."

Morgan glanced up from the map to see Peter watching her with a small smile. "What?"

"You're doing the same thing. Granted, youre not killing anyone, but you were someone else five seconds ago. You should've heard yourself. The things you were saying . . . I haven't heard stuff like that from you since I met you. You sounded like you make easy work of stealong cars. There are many reasons you and Lana are so tight. Maybe it's because deep enough inside, you're the same person. Maybe, if you two dig far enough, you'll come up identical. Yes, she strangled someone without batting an eyelid and yes, we found her drenched with the blood of probably several of those guys. But given the right circumstance, I wouldn't be surprised if I found out you survived the biggest car accident in history or got into a car chase and drove everyone else off the road. However different you and Lana may be, you're more similar than any pair I've ever seen."

Silently, Lana crept back up the stairs, hoping neither Peter nor Morgan saw her in the doorway. When she headed downstairs just after sunrise, Peter and Morgan were asleep on the couches. She crept into the kitchen and got to work on breakfast. Normally, she'd feel bad about stealing someone else's food, but with the week she was having, nothing seemed to faze her.

She was halfway done with all the pancakes when Nicole and Cassie walked into the kitchen. "Morning, El."

"Morning. Can one of you look for honey? I looked around, but I didn't see it anywhere. Morgan loves honey on her pancakes."

"Sure," Cassie said, grabbing a pancake off the stack as she walked to the end of the cabinets to begin her search.

"So, Cass and I were talking last night. We think you should train us."

Lana, who had her back to Nicole, laughed. "Train you? For what?"

"In case we run into more of those guys. We don't know who they were, if that was all of them. You know that if it wasn't, more will come looking for us. They'll bring twice the manpower, thrice the arsenal, thinking we're some superhumans with the way we wiped out a whole building of them."

Lana continued laughing as she flipped a pancake. She pulled the pan off the stove and turned to Nicole as she filpped the pancake a few more times. "What makes you think I'm the one who should be doing the teaching?"

"Befire we made it here, we stopped to rest a while. Cass doubled back to take the security footage -- just in case. Last night, we watched it on the computer in the study upstairs. El, we saw you slice throats with Peter's Swiss Army knife. You were -- you were violent and dangerous. Not just with the knife and the tasers. You took down guys twice your size with ease. I've never seen anything like that. You fired point blank from one of their guns and took out him _and_ a woman about twenty feet away."

Morgan fell off the couch as she woke with a shock to the sound of loud clattering and Lana's cursing. Later, over breakfast, Nicole announced that Lana and Peter would be tecahing the other three self-defence.

Lana was still very unsure of the whole idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this, my friends, is where the book left me and began to write itself. The halfway point. Prepare yourselves.


	12. Chapter 12

Lana squinted in the sunlight. "If you tell me to quit it one more time, I swear I'll go feral on your ass, Parker."

Peter remembered the last time Lana had called him by his last name -- the bloodtsined clothing still haunted him a little -- and panicked.

"It's frickin _noon_, Parker. Who even goes outside at noon? I reserve the right to complain."

Peter rolled his eyes. "The faster they learn to defend themselves, and the faster you learn to control that switch in your brain, the faster we can set course for New York. A graveyard is waiting for us if we turn back. If we move out into a city--"

"If we go out into a city, Stark Industries will be able to pick us up on facial recognition."

"Lana. If Stark Industries can do that, who else can?"

Lana huffed, blowing a lock of hair from her face. "Fine. For the record, I don't actually know how I do the whole . . . batshit crazy thing."

"It's fine," Peter said, "we're gonna help you learn how to know when you're doing it. Self-defence 101, use your own body weight to fight. Don't try to make a show of strength. Nic, you and Cass are on the CSS track team, right? You're fast. You need to learn to use that. Morgan, you play field hockey. Get your hands on a stick of any kind. Trust me, you'll figure it out from there. Lana, you need to learn how to control your own mind. All four of you were on the Decathlon team at some point. Means you're smart. Use that brain and improvise. You won't always be faced with the same kind of opponents. You also need to be aware."

In the blink of an eye, Peter flicked his wrist out and then swung towards Morgan. She shrieked as a hockey club almost hit her in the face. It snapped back into Peter's hand.

"Beware," he said, pointing it at her. She grabbed hold of it. "And be wary."

Lana nodded to Cassie and Nicole. "I may be currently unable to demonstrate, but I can teach you simple blocking. My mom and I used to do it for fun when I was a kid. Well, with recent events, I may be reconsidering the motives. I mean, Black Widow?"

Peter held the hockey club tight, almost driving it into the grass. "All you have to do is pretend you're on the field, there are no rules against striking the other team, you're playing Flash Thompson."

Morgan's jaw dropped. "How'd you know I hate him?"

"He kept bragging about beating some rich kid at a debate championship hosted by CSS. I figured it was you after you told me about all the clubs and teams you've been on. Anyway, just imagine it. You knock Flash down, you win championships. Ready?"

Morgan nodded with a grin. "Ready."

Two hours later, even Peter had learnt more. He was still battling Morgan, using his webslingers now to get out of trouble. As a result, they'd gotten closer to the -- very violent-looking -- kids' jungle gym installed on the plot. Nicole mentioned it looked like a training structure.) Morgan was in her element, she'd quickly realised. If she imagined any spot on Peter was a puck, she'd hit him harder.

Peter was sure his entire thigh and left side were blue, but he kept on going. He wasn't a out to be knocked down by an eighteen-year-old who'd _never_ been in a fight before.

Lana was pacing around Nicole and Cassie. Both were quick learners. Lana was sure they weren't using proper technique, but she was more interested in teaching them to use themselves and their opponents to their advantange and less about proper form. Still, what she noticed, she corrected.

"Wider stance, Nic. I could knock you off your feet like that. Cass, you're protecting your face at the expense of your abdomen. You'll go down easier than a free-falling building. One up, one down. That's better. Swing wider, hit harder. Nicole, drop!"

Nicole dropped and Cassie went flying over. Nicole got up, laughing. She looked to Lana for approval. Lana smiled, amused. "And, three -- two -- there we go."

Cassie bowled Nicole over, just barely stopping herself from breaking Nicole's nose with a tight fist.

"That's good Cass. You have better control than both Nic and I. In a proper fight, don't hesitate. Nic, didn't you do gymnastics when you were about twelve?"

Nicole nodded.

"Incorporate it. Bounce on your feet. Go back to being flexible. You'll avoid shots easier and landing will be lighter on your ankles. Cass, you always picked fights with the older kids at school. Most of them were bigger than you. Use the same strategies. You'll likely be smaller than most people we might have to fight. You know how to exploit someone else's weight. Now try it on Nic. Again, ladies."

Befire they could begin again, Lana heard Peter shout a warning cry. They looked over in time to duck the flying hockey club and witness Morgan blast Peter down. Lana stared, dumbstruck, as Morgan seemed to glow orange.

"Peter's on fire!" Cassie shouted, sprinting away from the unmoving figure in the flames and towards the garden hose. She tossed it to Nicole and got to work opening the tap. Cassie disappeared into the house and came back to find Peter coughing up water. As she ran, she slipped in the mud and landed beside him, instantly wrapping him in the towel. Peter passed out again.

Lana walked up to Morgan. "Em? Talk to me, Em, what's going on in your head?"

Morgan looked up from her fiery skin. "Every cell in my body . . . is _burning_," she whispered.

* * *

"I searched the co-ordinates you gave Steve. The warehouse they found belonged to Avanced Idea Mechanics," Tony said, "or Aim, for short. It's a scientific research and development facility. Government funded."

"I've never heard of Aim," Natasha said.

Tony struggled to get up. Natasha helped him to sit, offering a glass of water that he declined. Putting it down on the table, she sat down in the chair again.

"It was founded by Aldrich Killian. He wanted to do business with me a few years ago and I declined. The man was power hungry -- probably still is."

Natasha frowned. "Still begs the question, why take all the girls? If this Killian is out to get you, it makes sense why he'd target Morgan. But why was there no ransom? I mean, how long has it been since the break-in? No ransom, no threats, not a single word from them. There is the other question of who killed the entire building and essentially re-abducted the girls."

Tony sighed. "What I'm worried about is if it's Aim that got hold of the girls, did they use Extremis on one of them?"

"Extremis? What's Extremis?"

"Extremis," Tony's doctor said as he walked in, "is an advanved form of gene manipulation. It's done using nanotechnology. It started as a kind of miracle cure, regrowing dead cells, regeneration limbs, healing deformities, all kinds of things. Theoretically, this could make someone immortal."

"Started?" Natasha echoed.

The doctor nodded. "Now, it's been used to recruit assassins for Killian. He recruits amputees and mental patients as volunteers. Everyone who survives works for him in exchange for their miracle cure. He has these people on a leash. Everyone that doesn't . . . like with any foreign thing in your body, your immune system has to decide whether to accept it or to fight it. If the body fights Extremis, then Extremis kills the body. Basically, you either become a super human, or you go boom."

Natasha shook her head. "There were no signs of anything like that. No severed limbs lying around whole bodies, no scorch marks, nothing."

"That could be easily explained that whoever abducted your kids, they didn't give anyone a chance to charge up the Extremis before -- you said they were beheaded? You can't regrow anything if your head's no longer attached to your body."

"Huh," Natasha said to herself, sitting back in the chair and folding her arm, one leg over the other.

"On another note," the doctor smacked Tony's leg with the clipboard on the table, "you won't come visit, but you'll make sure I'm in theatre with you? Asshole."

Tony grinned. "In my defence, I almost died."

"_How_ is that in your defence, Tony?"

"Nat, this is Dr Bruce Banner, we may not be high class outlaws, but we got up to some shit in our MIT days. Bruce, this is Natasha Romanoff, my girlfriend."

Bruce grinned as he pulled up the other chair in the room. "I thought the rumours were rumours again. Tell me something, Ms Romanoff, how have you managed to stick around Tony for what, five, six--"

"Eleven," Tony cut in.

"_Eleven_ months?!"

"Years, actually."

"Eleven _years_?!"

"Believe me, Dr Banner, I ask myself the same question almost daily."

"Hey!"

Natasha smiled at Tony. She pushed his hair back and kissed his forehead. "Still love you, though."

"Tony," Bruce said, suddenly looking serious, "if Extremis is involved, you're going to need a lot more help than whatever new toy you built."

Natasha glanced at Tony, wanting to ask him if she could trust this Dr Banner. Tony seemed to know him pretty well. Tony answered the question for her.

"Bruce, I _am_ the help. You know what they've done."

Bruce studied Natasha for a second. "Oh, _those_ high-class outlaws! In that case, it's an honour to officially meet you. . .?"

"She's the one they call Black Widow?"

Bruce's eyes twinkled. "Wow."

"Wow?" Natasha repeated, raising an eyebrow.

"Tony never quite agreed with me, but I thought your work with Hammer Industries was brilliant and hilarious."

"I never said it wasn't, I just said it was fishy. And illegal."

"By the way," Bruce continued, ignoring Tony, "what did you use the money for?"

Natasha smiled. "We invested it."

"But that would've sparked suspicion, wouldn't it?"

"Back when we pulled the heist on Hammer, all of us were operational. There were no babies to look after and Vis was still on the team. There were ten of us with legitimate bank accounts. We split the money equally and over, I think, two or three years, we put all of it into the accounts. Since then, the accounts have grown exponentially. I actually do honest work at Joseph's now."

"Wait," Tony said, "what does that mean?"

"Well, seeing that the Hammer heist gave me no less than a million, I didn't actually need to do more robbing and thieving for money. But it was habit. I ended up buying out auctions with the highests bids under a false name. Then I'd resell the item on the black market for almost twice the price. I stopped when Lana and Morgan started hanging around more often."

"Sweet," Bruce said with a soft smile, noticing the quick glance Natasha gave Tony. "But if you had a million at least in your account, why live where you wete living?"

"Tony was born first, he has to answer that question first."

"Fair enough. Look, I'm gonna be honest with you. If Aim has your girls, then you're going to need help. Not because I don't think you and your team can't handle Extremis, but because I think they planned for you. If Killian wanted to get Tony, he would have made sure to get you _and_ your daughters. The other two wouldn't have gotten hauled in and neither would that Queens kid. Tony, I don't think Aim's working alone. You gotta go see him."

Tony shook his head and pouted. "No way. He won't talk to me. Why would he? I've been ignoring him for years."

"Tony, you need his help. You need someone who's fought Extremis victims before. You have to go see him."

"I am not going to Washington and that is _final_."

* * *

Lana pounded on the door.

"Morgan, _please_ come out!"

"Go away!"

Lana sighed and stepped back. "Peter?"

Cassie shrieked when Peter rammed hinself into the door. She'd expected him to try his hand on convincing Morgan to open it up. The door gave way and broke off its hinges. Lana slipped past the stumbling Peter.

"Morgan. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I didn't do anything! I don't--"

"I'm not talking about what happeend outside! I thought we agreed we were sisters! Years before your dad asked me if he could date my mom! Morgan, what the hell makes you think I'd _ever_ stay away from you?"

"Don't come near me!" Morgan shouted when she noticed Lana reaching out. She scrambled back, stumbling into a dresser.

"Fine! I won't. For now. Just . . . stay with me. When we get home, you can ignore me all you want. I promise. I won't even bug you. Just, please . . . please don't shut me out now."

"I can't do this, Lana. Something is very, _very_ wrong with me. You saw what happened outside. Peter was on fire!"

"Look, Em, I'm gonna be really honest with you here. We're kinda having the shittiest week possible here, so I'd really appreciate it if we could try to get through this together instead of trying to find our own way through this shitstorm. So there's good news and bad news. Good news, you got some strange gifts. Bad news, you don't know how to control it. More good news, _you_ haven't killed anyone with your uncontrollable skills."

"Lana--"

"No, hear me out. We have been kidnapped, chained up, starved, dragged accross the whole damn state, you've clearly been someone's guinea pig, I've committed more murders in one day than fucking Bundy, Nicole's in a cooking frenzy -- and you know it takes a lot to put her there -- Cassie's been tormenting my ears with her creepy lullabies and Peter's been held captive longer than us, almost been tased, and he's just been accidentally set on fire. So yeah, we're a _little_ on edge. Personally, I'm not surprised you're spontaneously combusting. In fact, I've tried. Clearly, my uncontrolled skills are a little less self-destructive. Now, what do you want me to do? Sit and talk with you, feed you and put you to bed, or submerge you in ice water until you pick either of the two?"

Surprisingly, Morgan laughed. "Food sounds good."

"Great, you can heat that shit up. Nic says the microwave is busted."

"Lana!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHA EXTREMIS IS INVOLVED, BRUCE SHOWED UP AND GUESS WHO'S IN WASHINGTON


	13. Chapter 13

Washington, DC.

Natasha had been there exactly once. She didn't really remember it. What she did remember was that she had never been to Capitol Hill.

While Tony wandered off who knows where, Natasha admired the rotunda and the massive dome above it. When she got bored of that, she tried to see how many times she could slip in and out of the doorways between the vistors space and what was forbidden access.

Somewhere further inside, Tony knocked on a door.

"Open," came the voice from inside.

Tony opened the door very slowly. "Please don't throw anything at me," he said very quickly, hiding behind the door.

The retired colonel looked up from a set of stapled pages. "Wha. . ." When Tony closed the door and turned to face him, he threw a paperweight at the billionaire.

Tony squaked and dodged. "C'mon, Rhodey! I asked so nicely!" Whining, Tony picked up the paperweight. "This is cute," he said, setting the hideously deformed duck on the table.

"Yeah, your kid gave it to me when she was three. You know, the last time we saw each other."

"I know, and I'm sorry. I haven't been the greatest--"

"Cut the bullshit, Tones, I know you know you're a piece of shit."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "Good to see you too?"

Rhodey glared at Tony for a few more seconds before he grinned. "It is good to see you. I have half a mind to call security and tell them you're harrassing me."

"What if I got you a coffee from the visitors kiosk? I'll even pay extra for them to douse it with cream the way you like?"

Rhodey gestured to the door. "Coffee sounds great, buddy."

As they walked through the hallways and down the stairs, the two men continued their coversation. "So, what brings Mr Money to Capitol Hill?"

"I . . . I need a favour," Tony said hesitantly.

"I know. Happy would've called ahead if this were just a meetup. Bet he doesn't even know you're here."

"He does not," Tony confirmed, "I'm buying Pepper a new car to keep Happy working as if I'm still there."

"What happened to her old one?"

"Accidentally crashed it on the way to New York a couple days ago -- roughly. I haven't been keeping proper track of time."

"Right, because she was _so excited_ to see you."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Shut up."

Rhodey laughed. "All right. So, what's the favour?"

"I seem to recall that you destroyed an Aim laboratory years ago? Fighting Extremis agents?"

"Yeah. You funded the tech my team used, remember? What about it?"

"I need you to help with it again."

"Tones, I'm off the field, man. There are hundreds of trained agents. You know what, for a friend, I can actually get in touch with a secret goverment intelligence agency that breeds soldiers for this type of nonsense. I mean, you--"

"Rhodes," Tony said, stopping near the entrance to the rotunda.

"What? What is it?"

Tony glanced down. "We think -- we think they're the ones who have Morgan."

"Wait . . . wait, go back. _Someone_ has Morgan?"

Tony nodded. "About three or something days ago, she and her friends were . . . kidnapped. Probably a week or less before, this Midtown Science genius disappeared. We don't know how Morgan and her friends are linked to the kid, but . . . anyway, so this group of--" Tony lowered his voice, "_speacialists_ \-- that we're working with, they followed a signal over to Rochester. When they got there, the entire building was dead. Some were electrocuted to death, others missing a head. Whoever killed them all took the girls and Peter from there. We don't know who, but they know how to effectively fight Extremis soldiers. I need you to at least teach these guys how to fight Extremis without burning to a crisp."

"Jesus, Tony, you could've led with Morgan being kidnapped!"

Both looked down the hallway at the sound of a scuffle, followed by light laughter.

"Ah, shit," Tony hissed, hurrying down the hallway as fast as his injuries would let him.

"Tony? Tony!"

Rhodey noticed the slight limp Tony had as he followed Tony to the two security guards cufffing someone.

"Hey," Tony said, pushing one aside, "hey, let go of her."

Rhodey joined them and motioned for the guards to let go of the grinning redhead.

"Sir, she was caught trying to slip last us."

"I actually did," Natasha said, "seven times."

"Nat!" Tony hissed, tugging on the wrist he had.

"It's fine," Rhodey said, glancing at Tony glaring at Natasha, "I'll take it from here."

He gestured back out to the visitor's area. Only slightly harsh, Tony pulled Natasha's arm.

"What were you thinking?" he hissed as they walked behind Rhodey, "are you _trying_ to get arrested?"

"I was bored," Natasha defended, "I've never been to Capitol Hill before."

"Look, just because you finally stopped lying to me, doesn't mean you can start misbehaving wherever you want. If I'm going to find my girls, I'm gonna need your help."

Natasha smiled and kept silent, only because she'd just realised that Tony had long ago accepted Lana as his own child too, just as she had with Morgan. Her smile turned to a frown when Tony semi-roughly pushed her into the backseat of Rhodey's car. The entire drive to the nearest Starbuck, Natasha kept spitting threats at Tony under her breath. Rhodey was getting worried.

Natasha kept silent until Tony was done explaining to Rhodey what had been going on.

"You want my help fighting Extremis? The people you think kidnapped your kids? And also maybe whoever knows how to fight Extremis?"

Tony nodded. "Pretty much. Look, I have something new you might wanna try playing with. Nat?"

Natasha slid her phone across the table. Rhodey looked at the photo and shook his head with a smile. "Only you, Tony. I can't believe you thought I was gonna say _no_ to helping you find your kid. So, this beauty aside, who are these specialists you've been working with?"

"That would be me and my family," Natasha said.

Rhodey raised his eyebrows.

"They're skilled in the art of espionage, theft and assassination."

If possible, Rhodey's eyebrows went up further.

"We take full responsibility for the ten million dollar loss Hammer Industries suffered in '02. The 1998 Columbia Mascot was one of us too. In our defence, we _did_ put it back four months later. Also, there was Art History Museums Vandalism Week, and the same week, shadowed by reports of the vandalisms, we took out three massive mobs. For the fun of it, obviously."

"Obviously," Rhodey said sarcastically, as if it really were something people often did.

"There's more than that that we've done, a few smaller heists, a couple of paid assassinations, two of us were part of --"

Natasha's phone rang, cutting her off. She was about to excuse herself when she realised it was Jarvis. Deciding to keep Tony -- and Rhodey -- on par, she answered and put it on speaker.

"Nat! We broke the corrupted footage from your house."

"What's on it?"

"I think you should come see this for yourself."

Natasha exchanged a glance with Tony. "Got a jet?" Rhodey asked, "or do I need to organise one?"

"We have one," Natasha said, already leaving with Tony in tow.

* * *

"You really think they experimented on her?"

Lana scoffed. "Well, she's never been able to shoot fire from her hands before, so I'm gonna go with yes."

"What do you think it is?"

"Peter, _you're_ the science genius -- but what good is it? I mean, yeah, she would probably give you a blood sample, but without proper equipment, what can you do?"

"What are _you_ doing, then?"

Peter got up from the couch he sat on to lean on the backrest behind Lana.

"I'm watching the security footage Cassie stole before we left. Just to see what I was doing. Maybe if I know what I do, it'll be easier to slip in an out of -- what did you call it?"

"Danger zone," Peter responded instantly, peering at the computer screen.

Lana gasped and turned away when she saw herself behead someone for the first time. Peter watched her curiously.

She really did remember nothing.

"Maybe we can do something else," Peter said softly, taking the laptop away from Lana and setting it down on the coffee table in front.

Lana watched as he closed the window and opened something else up. "What are you doing?"

"Checking to see if Cassie got something other than security footage from the building. Don't you want to know why they called you the _Widow's spawn_? What the Black Widow really is?"

Lana joined Peter on the floor as he scsmned through files upon files. "Wow. You know, I was thinking of getting into computer science once I graduated. That is, if I get back in time for finals."

Peter laughed. "You'll get there. Don't worry."

Lana smiled. She turned to the computer. "Wait, stop!"

"What?"

"I saw something. Go back a few files. There! That one."

The two of them peered at the headline. _Black Widow strikes Air Force base in Fort Meade, Maryland._

"So, not a widow like we thought," Peter said, "it's a codename."

"I've never heard of a Black Widow before," Lana said.

"Maybe she was covert. Like a spy, working for some goverment agency."

Lana raised her eyebrows. "You're right, you _do_ watch too many movies."

"Look, we've just been kidnapped, thrown together in some dungeon cell, witnessed a sweet, ordinary girl behead several agents and fry a whole building, escape said building with relatively small injuries, your sister's developed superpowers, and now we find out the bad guys made the kidnap to get to your mom, who's a secret goverment spy ready to take down the enemy and --"

"She wasn't a spy," Lana said softly, staring at the laptop.

"Come on, El. The proof is right there. She--"

"No. She wasn't a _spy_. She was a _criminal_."

Using whatever access their captors had, Lana and Peter accessed hidden footage and saw, among several other people during different occasions, the Black Widow engaged in battle.

Peter was stunned. He had just seen Lana on the very same laptop swing herself over onto someone's shoulders and snap their neck. Now, he watched as a figure in all black with crimson locks did the same thing to someone else.

"Well, one thing's for sure. Your skills are genetic."

"Peter!"

He grinned, glad to see the amused grin on her face.

* * *

Natasha watched, much like Tony, with her thumbnail between her teeth. The others had seen it already, so Jarvis said. Pepper was shaking and Bucky was on edge. Jarvis said Clint and Scott left to call Laura, Maggie and Hope.

The girls were sitting around the coffee table, playing a card game in their pajamas. A forgotten movie played on the TV and two half empty bowls of popcorn sat beside several cola cans on the couch behind Lana.

Natasha jumped slightly when a window shattered, the glass falling in. Both focused as hard as they could, trying to envison themselves being right there in the room.

* * *

5 days ago

* * *

"You're such a wimp, honestly," Cassie laughed, throwing her cards down. "We could've won, but _nooooo_, Lana had to save her four for a 'real needy moment', well guess what, loser, we lost the game."

"You keep saying 'we'," Morgan noted, "I don't think you understand Crazy 8's at all."

"Wait, you mean we weren't playing in teams?"

Nicole laughed so hard she almost fell over backwards. "Cass, how do you play Crazy 8's in teams? I thought you said you knew Uno."

"I _do_ know Uno!"

"It's the exact same principle!" Lana cried, mock-throwing an empty cola can at Cassie.

Cassie threw her own empty can at Lana -- obviously missing -- and knocked the bowl over. The popcorn bounced over the couch seats.

"Shit."

Lana stilled. Nicole noticed it first. She started to resssure Lana they'd clean it up before Natasha got back, but she never got the chance. The window behind Lana shattered. Nicole and Cassie, who had both sprinted 400 mile races before, had never seen anyone move as fast as Lana did when she threw herself over the coffee table and lifted it up on its side before pulling Morgan and Nicole into Cassie, shielding them from the shattering glass.

"Lana!" Morgan cried as Cassie screamed and covered her ears. Nicole made a grab at Lana but missed the girl as she slipped out between the coffee table and the couch.

Morgan peeked out to see Lana swing the empty plastic bowl at someone's head so hard, the bowl broke in three pieces.

Eight men jumped through the windows. Lana fought off three with her popcorn bowls.

Morgan, Cassie and Nicole screamed and kicked when they were picked up off the floor by an intruder each. Lana glanced their way once before delivering even harder blows. None of the three saw her spin one of them by their head, breaking their neck.

Nicole saw Lana twist a cola can until it snapped and us the jagged end to stab incoming attackers before a bag covered her eyes.

One of them looked up for something and Lana saw an opening, using her makeshift knife, she slit his throat and pushed him away. He landed on the couch and slowly slipped onto the carpet.

Cassie momentarily stopped kicking and fighting when Lana cried out. She hissed as she watched Lana take her hand from her upper arm, her palm stained red. That was the last she saw before a bag covered her head.

In total, Lana took down three of the eight before one managed to grab her and another pressed a stained rag to her mouth and nose. While Lana struggled and continued to fight, Morgan bit the arm around her neck. While she did break his skin under his suit, she didn't get to break away. The last she saw of Lana was watching her drop one of the men down, her her legs wrapped around his neck.

Despite the fight she put up, the chloroform coupled with the suffocation knocked Lana out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey look, it's Rhodes & a flashback


	14. Chapter 14

Natasha and Tony continued watching. They stayed until they saw more hidden figures enter and remove the bodies from the living room.

Five minutes later, Happy broke the door down. Five more minutes and they saw the police enter and mark spots over the living room. The footage turned to static just as they saw Natasha enter the frame. Jarvis did say they'd only got a portion unscrambled.

"She killed them." The words were a whisper, shattering the silence the footage had brought.

"Nat--"

"She killed them. My daughter killed _four_ men, one of whom she killed _as she was passing out_. All without even blinking."

"Natasha--"

"No no no _no_, she -- she wasn't supposed to be like that. She was supposed to grow up like a normal kid. She was never supposed to learn all of that. You know what this means, right?"

Tony paused at the question. "What?"

"Maybe Aim _is_ working alone. Maybe it was Lana that did all of that."

Tony's eyes almost fell out of his head. "Nat, I have a disturbingly clear picture of what that warehouse looked like. There is no way in hell Lana was able to take on several Extremis soldiers. And beheading a person? No. No, I don't think so. Aim isn't alone. They have som--"

"Tony, are you blind?! Didn't you watch that? Did she look like the same girl you know when she was fighting for her friends -- her sister? Did she even look like Lana? She was someone else! Someone I tried to bury! She was . . . she was . . . _oh_ _no_ . . . she was _me_. She was her father."

Natasha collapsed into the couch, beside Tony. "When I left, when we burned our warehouse, I told myself that it was right. I was walking away for her. So that she could grow up and choose for herself what kind of life she wanted. So that I never threw my life onto her. But I don't know where I screwed up, where I taught her everything I know. She wasn't even around her father long enough to become like him! I just . . . I don't know what I did wrong."

Tony scooted closer to Natasha and wrapped his arms around her, pressing her face into his chest.

She broke down.

* * *

"I can't just turn it on whenever I feel like. I didn't even know I had . . . whatever it is."

Lana shrugged. "Fine," she said, "I'll just pull it out of you."

"What are you doing?" Morgan asked, watching Lana undo her sling. "El, you can't be serious."

Lana shrugged. "Peter's inside, trying to figure out where's the nearest place with a lab so he can figure out if this fire stuff is genetic and permanent or if it's something that's gonna pass through your system soon. Cass and Nic are somewhere in the trees -- berry picking of all things. Basically, there's no one here to stop me."

Lana finished her grand speech kicking up the discarded hockey club. She caught it after it had a good a few flips and tossed it to Morgan.

"El, I'm not gonna fight you for real. I mean, you being my sister aside, you're severly injured. I saw them myself when Peter was stitching up your shoulder. Besides, you don't want to rip those stitches, do you?"

"I want to see the extent of these . . . powers. I want to see your breaking point. I want to know how far I have to push you before you erupt."

"El, I'm not fighting you."

"Oh, baby, I'm not giving you a choice." Lana flicked out a switchblade she'd picked up on her raid around the house for a midnight snack the night before.

Morgan blinked. There was no arguing with Lana. Wherever that switch was, it had been flicked down. She shrieked and dodged Lana's first blow. The redhead growled and swiped the air again. Morgan backed away from Lana, letting the hockey club take damage. Eventually, Lana split the club in two.

"Shit!" Morgan cried.

Lana came for her with no intention of stopping. Morgan glanced down and kicked up the garden rake. She broke the handle from the rake and used it to fight back. Soon, she noticed Lana was laughing.

Lana was _enjoying_ the fight. Morgan let go. She relaxed, letting instinct take over. She knew it was dangerous. She wasn't a fighter -- she didn't have fighter's instincts. But Peter was right, once she had her hands on a stick, she knew what to do.

Relentlessly, she went for Lana's legs, always trying to trip her sister up. It almost worked -- more than once. The longer it went on, the easier it became. Lana switched hands more than once, spinning the switchblade and changing her grasp to attack differently. Morgan attacked with both ends of the stick. With one end, she went for Lana's feet. When Lana dodged the low blow, Morgan went for her upper body with the other end.

Eventually, what felt like hours later, Lana knocked Morgan down and stradlled her sister on the ground. The tip of the blade was so close, so very close to Morgan's ear. One wrong move and Morgan would have it bandaged for weeks -- maybe months. Her crossed arms held Lana back, but she was sttaining harder than ever before.

Lana's excitement sparked when Morgan's eyes began to glow orange. The change was instantaneous. The same way the switch in Lana flipped so suddenly, Morgan blinked and the dial went right to the end. Her eyes glowed white hot and her skin smoked.

Lana flew off.

When Morgan sat up, exhausted, Lana was frantically patting her pants down while the shirt she'd been wearing open over a vest burned up on the ground beside her. The limp to the sling was an excruciating one, but Lana was grinning madly.

"Psycopath," Morgan muttered, falling back on the soft grass.

When they both went inside, supporting each other, Peter's eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. He studied them. Morgan was breathing heavy, looking ready to collapse. Peter thought he could see smoke rising off her shoulders. Lana looked worse, but that was only because her clothes were slightly charred. She had aquired a limp, and every move made her wince. She wasn't even sure which wound made her wince every time. Peter thought he could smell burning hair.

He decided not to comment. "There's still electricity here and I found the geyser switch. I suggest you each take a hot bath and then a nap. You clearly can't be trusted outside on your own."

Lana laughed as Morgan dragged her up the stairs. When Cassie and Nicole returned, Peter complained about the sisters.

"Well, Pete, in their defence, we let them outside alone."

Peter glared at Nicole. "Not. Helping."

She turned away from the stove to grin at Peter. "You know something, Pete?"

Peter, who had moved the laptop and map to the small table in the kitchen, looked up to the back of Nicole's head. "What?"

"When I first heard your voice, I honestly thought you were going to be the one to save us. Call me cheesy or even childish, but I thought I managed to land in a cliché romance novel. You know, damsel in distress, hero saves the day, happy ending, you know?"

Peter tilted his head. Cassie smiled from the other end of the counter, where she was preparing the cake mix for dessert. 

"Not that you're not capable," Nicole said quickly, glancing back at Peter, "it's just . . . Lana was quite effective in her methods."

"Mm."

"Well, I mean, maybe _I_ didn't end up in a typical romance novel, but _you_ did."

"What do you mean?"

Cassie glanced upwards, where Morgan and Lana were -- hopefully -- asleep and resting.

"I mean, you're _great_ for this kind of stories," Nicole continued, unaware of Cassie's gesturing. "Cute, smart, handy with a first aid kit, stitched your own wounds before, kidnapped and escaped before. Clever enough to use a physical map and you're finding us a way home. You even carried El all the way here _and_ stitched her up. All that's left is the falling in love bit and bam, we have a bestseller."

Peter glanced at Cassie, who was grinning and pointing up.

"How many meatballs do you want with your spaghetti?" Nicole asked, turning around with a bowl in her hand.

"I am not in love with Lana and I don't _plan_ on falling in love with her either!"

Cassie clapped her hand to her forehead.

"Who said anything about Lana? She's not really the dating type, anyway. I just mentioned her because she's the one who got herself injured. I meant Morgan, anyway."

"Oh."

Cassie raised her eyebrows at Nicole, who smiled.

* * *

"What now?"

"We can't find the girls," Loki said, "why don't we put a target on this Killian? If anything, he should be able to lead us to the girls."

"Frostbite has a point," Natasha said, tapping her chin, "but Vis ran a trace. Killian's been missing for months."

"My brother and I will hunt Killian," Thor said.

"Another thing," Wanda said, "we all assumed the blood at Nat's place belonged to one of the girls, so we never looked into that. Why didn't the police?"

"Good question. But we looked into someone keeping the whole incident hush."

"What if the guy we found was just a scapegoat?" Jarvis asked, "what if there's more of them in the department? He did know very little for someone who would have been a double agent. Wanda, you and your brother can handle getting in and finding out? I'll try to get records of the break-in. If we get our hands on the blood, we get our hands on a DNA sample. With luck, that might lead somewhere."

"Steve," Natasha said, "you and Sam head back to Rochester and search as far and wide as you can. If it was Lana who fried the place, then they got out and they're somewhere nearby. If not, I hope you find traces of whoever took them."

"I'll go with Steve and Sam," Bucky said.

"Are you sure--"

"I'm sure, Natasha."

"Okay. I'll go to my house tomorrow and see if I can get a sample for Vis . . . you should all get a good night's rest."

The room began to empty. Scott and Clint waited until it was just Pepper, Tony and Jarvis left.

"What are _we_ supposed to do?" Scott asked Natasha.

"Go home. Especially you, Clint. You have two other kids who haven't seen you for almost six days. I know you want to keep working on this day and night, trust me, I really do, but we can't. If we get something, you'll be the first to know. I promise."

They knew better than most that there was no arguing with Natasha when she spoke softly to them. They'd tried many times in the past.

Pepper was waiting for Natasha when she left, softly closing the bedroom door behind her.

"Hi."

Natasha smiled. "Hi. Didn't see you there."

"I heard you getting up, actually. Cocoa?"

Natasha took a second before nodding. "Sure."

Down in the kitchen, Pepper stirred two mugs. "He's lucky," she said, placing a mug in front of Natasha.

"What? That a former criminal is dating him?"

"Former being the operative word," Pepper pointed out, sitting down on the other side of the island counter. "No matter how many times I heard the story, it's still strange to listen to."

"What story?"

"The whole thing. Finally, with all the pieces. Lana and Morgan meeting at kindergarten. The coins, your past. Fate . . . it fits together pieces that didn't even know were from the same picture."

"I always wondered," Natasha said slowly, "why you and Tony never stuck. Especially after Morgan."

Pepper shrugged. "I didn't love him. Not the way you do, anyway. I wasn't ready for all of that. You know, I wanted to abort Morgan?"

"I heard."

"He said, 'let's give it a try'. I told him I couldn't. I didn't want to. He said he was sure Morgan would bring us closer together. After she was born, I didn't feel any different to him. I knew that I loved Morgan, and I knew that he had been right about that, but . . . she couldn't change the fact that I didn't want to be _with_ him. He loved me. He really did. But he loved Morgan more. And he loves you and your daughter more. I was worried about Morgan, how she would grow up, but I saw the kind of person he was becoming for her. After that," Pepper shrugged again, "he's looked after her better than I ever could. Besides, I'm the cool parent because I bring gifts whenever I show up and I'm usually not around long enough to do much scolding."

Natasha snorted. "You're the cool aunt too," she grumbled, thinking about how excited Lana always got when they heard Pepper would be visiting.

"I refuse to be blamed. I heard she wanted the book, so I bought an autographed copy. How was I supposed to know I'd be her favourite after that?"

"How did you _not_ know that?"

"That's fair, I'll take that."

Natasha smiled. She glanced away from Pepper, trailing her finger over the rim of her mug. Her smile faded away.

Burned into her memory was the image of Lana mercilessly killing. It didn't make it any better, no matter how many times Natasha repeated it to herself, that Lana had done so in an attempt to save herself, her sister, and her friends.


	15. Chapter 15

The door to the shed slammed open. "I thought we told you to go to bed!"

Morgan rolled out from under a convertible. "Couldn't sleep," she said, offering Peter a guilty smile, "what are you doing up?"

Peter leaned against the doorframe. "I heard a noise in your room. When you didn't answer, I pushed on the door. It opened to an empty room. Given that they asked about Lana direc-- okay, somewhat directly, and you were obviously their guinea pig, you and your sister are top priority for the rest of us. When I found your room empty, I panicked."

"You never answered my question," Morgan said, pushing back on the board and tapping Peter's shoe with a screwdriver. "Why you up?"

"I have . . . important. . ."

"Shit?"

Peter smiled down at the brunette laying on the board. "Yeah. So, what are you doing?"

Morgan slowly picked herself up off the floor, dusting her hands on her pants. "It's no sports car, so that's sad, but it'll be more than effective. Mazda--"

"That's a Miata, right? About two, maybe three, years old?" Peter asked, glancing at Morgan as he walked towards the car.

She smiled. "Yeah, MX-5 2019 -- you know, for someone who claims to not know his cars well, that was pretty quick recognition."

"Knowing this and that isn't a crime," Peter said, opening the door, "is it?"

"No, I guess not," Morgan said, standing on the other side of the door. She stared at Peter for a second before turning away. "Anyway, it was a wreck -- the inside, I mean. I tinkered around a little bit, but . . . nothing special. I think it should start up but I don't know where the keys are."

"Pity," Peter said, closing the door.

"You know this means the people who own this place have been here pretty recently, right? I mean, even if the car was bought the year it was released and they haven't been here since, that's only three years ago. Besides, this thing's definitely been used."

"Shiny, clean, no plates . . . I think they bought the car and then vanished."

Morgan scoffed. "Dude, the mileage on this thing is through the roof! There's no way it hasn't seen, like, the whole state. Besides, everything under the hood needed some attention and then . . . the underside looked like shit. It was definitely on the road for quite a while."

Peter shrugged. "Well, if they come back, we'll just all squish into the car and take off."

Morgan smiled, rolling her eyes. "_Great_ plan, Mr Parker."

Peter grinned, always happy when his jokes made one of them smile. It was the least he could do with all that was happening to them. He glanced at the other side of the shed. "What's under there?"

"Don't know," Morgan said, walking to the covered vehicle. Together, they pulled the tarp from it, spreading dust everywhere. Peter thought he saw Morgan's eyes glow as she coughed and waved her hand in front of her face. "Let's see what you know, Petey. Tell me about this red devil."

Peter waved the dust away. "Ford," he said first.

"Obviously."

"Hm . . . Fiat . . . 124 Spider."

Morgan squinted at Peter. "What year?"

"Same year as the Miata."

Morgan studied the car. "You're good, Peter."

"I'm good at _guessing,_" Peter pointed out, grinning. "Problem is, between these two cars, there are only four seats. Between the five of us, there are only two drivers. Is lucky number five gonna sit on someone's lap?"

Morgan smiled. "Pity you're one of the drivers, huh?"

Peter didn't get it.

"Besides, Lana's a devil on a bike," Morgan said, pointing towards the back of the shed, "I found that beauty first. Didn't need much work, just a little . . . dust in the joints, if you will."

"You couldn't sleep so you sorted out our ride?"

Morgan shrugged. "My dad kept this gorgeous sports car in our garage. He worked on it almost every weekend. That's probably where I picked all this kind of stuff up. It's nice, actually. Even better than the thrill I get out of _finally_ hearing a beat-up engine purr, I got to stun the kids across the street. I mean, which pretty princess in frills and sparkles knows how to fine-tune a dying engine to run for like, six more years?"

Peter hopper up on the table beside a toolbox. "Have you actually done that before or. . ."

"I might have. You'd never know."

"That's true. I actually found the safest lab. It's a hospital about fifteen to twenty minutes -- maybe even thirty with traffic -- from here."

Morgan busied herself packing the tools away neatly -- as if it were her own to set up as she liked. "I thought you didn't want us going out into a town or city."

"That was _before_ you set me on fire," Peter said. His voice had a teasing tug to it, but Morgan could still hear the seriousness beneath it. She could feel his gaze on her bare arms as she dropped a wrench into the box.

"And what if you're right? What if there's more of them and they find us in the city?"

Peter shrugged. "Then we get to make a scene, you get to set things alight and Lana gets to have the kill switch flipped. Look, what's most important right now is finding out what's running in your veins."

Morgan only noticed Peter holding on to her when he tapped her forearm.

"Finding out if it's even safe for you to keep using the abilities it gives you. We go in, just me and you, and get into the labs. Lana will keep lookout. Nic and Cass will be in the main waiting area ready to cause a scene to cover us if we need it."

Morgan looked up at Peter as he sat in front of her. "And what if we get caught in the hospital?"

Peter shrugged again. "I'll be in a lab, Morgan. I can make miracles happen. You won't even have to start burning up to cause an explosion."

Morgan ducked her head to hide her amused smile. "Stop poking fun at my abnormalities."

"Why? If you don't laugh about them, what do you do?"

Morgan rolled her eyes. She yanked her arm from Peter's grasp and went back to the tools. "What happens if my dad finds us? Would we even know? What if he managed to reconfigure Stark Industries networks to search for us? What if he finds us and . . . and we leave?"

"If he finds us and we leave, then we'll meet him when we get to New York. I'm just worried. . ."

Morgan glanced back. "About?"

"About us being right. What if you're right? What if there _are_ more of them, you know? It's why I can't sleep."

Morgan sighed and dropped the last few tools into the box. She smiled up at Peter, and it was a sad smile. "Movie? I mean, it's not my electricity bill and with the week that just doesn't seem to want to end, I really couldn't care less what I steal from where."

"A movie sounds good," Peter eventually said, hopping off the table. They locked up the shed and strolled back into the house. Upstairs, a curtain fell closed. Cassie and Nicole buried their soft laughter in their pillows.

* * *

"All right. This time, we search the _entire_ building. We know the girls aren't here, but we don't know what else we might find. Meet back here in an hour?"

Sam and Bucky nodded at Steve. The three of them split once they walked through the gate. Bucky crept along the walls, no longer wary of the water. He was, however, wary of the dismembered agents.

"You know, I'm not seeing any indication these guys are Aim."

"I noticed too," Steve said, "but I'm not seeing anything that says what they _are_."

"Hm."

Bucky gagged as he stepped over a severed head. Beady eyes stared up at him. "Sam, you think you can try to salvage security footage from this place? See who really took these guys out?"

"If I can find the surveillance room before retching my organs out, there's a chance."

Bucky grinned. They heard Steve chuckle. Bucky turned a corner and found himself in a lab. He studied the many bottles and tubes on the table.

"Well, we know Extremis was _definitely_ involved," Bucky said, looking at a box containing several doses of the labelled substance.

"Take it with," Steve said, "if we get that to Stark's friend, Banner, he could probably find a way use it to find anyone exposed to Extremis."

Bucky pocketed several of the vials.

"Hey, I found a laptop that's not fried!"

"Clearly, the lab wasn't flooded," Sam muttered.

"Implying that if someone were in the lab, they could have waited out the frying flood?" Bucky clarified, starting up the computer.

"Exactly. If Nat's right and the girls got out themselves, someone is hunting them down."

"Buck, keep that laptop. Is it locked?"

"Yeah."

"We get that to Vis, we find out what's on it. See anything else?"

"Not at the moment. You?"

"Nothing."

"Same here," Sam called, "surveillance room is completely fried. If I wanted to save anything, I would've had to have done it when the flood first settled. It's too late now."

"Shit," Bucky hissed.

"Move out," Steve said a few seconds later, "check the perimeter and then we go through the trees. Got it?"

"Got it," Bucky and Sam both said, making a last round of where they were before heading back to the gate where they had found Nicole's nightgown.

* * *

Morgan screamed. Three people came tumbling down the stairs. Lana, who was very used to the kind of screams Morgan gave and what they meant, followed at a much slower pace. Short and loud meant spider. Sometimes it meant a parent was home and she'd forgotten everything she was supposed to have done. When she finally found Morgan, she almost screamed too.

"Weapons!"

Morgan picked up a suit and rapped her knuckles against it. "Exoskeleton suits! El, look at all this stuff."

Lana jumped and caught the bag of little silver balls Morgan tossed at her. "What are these supposed to be?"

"Remote-access electromag scramblers. Observe." From another bag, Morgan hurled one at the radio in the kitchen. It stuck like a disc. She tossed a small remote to Lana.

Lana raised an eyebrow before pressing the only button on the remote. The radio sparked three times before they were left in silence.

"How did you know what these are?" Peter asked, rolling one of them between his tumb and forefinger, studying it.

"Better question is how El doesn't," Morgan murmured, rummaging through the drawer. She came up with a handle.

"Is that missing a blade or. . ."

Morgan frowned for a second. She stepped back and flicked it out, squeaking gleefully when a rod shot out. "Electroshock batons!" she cried, pressing something and watching sparks fly over the baton before it settled, emitting a low hum. Carefully, she managed to close it up again and set it on the counter where she had been attempting breakfast.

"Let's see. . ."

Cassie lurched forward and grabbed Morgan around the waist before she fell into the drawer. "The cabinets didn't sound hollow when I was kicking it in boredom yesterday."

"Does this look hollow to -- ooh, what's _this_?"

Lana stared at the armband Morgan turned over in her hands once Cassie set her down again.

"What?" Peter asked, having heard Lana whisper something under her breath.

"Укус вдовы . . . it means Widow's Bite. They're bracelets that can fire electroshock pulses -- I think."

"How do you--"

"We have to go," Lana said, cutting Nicole off, "we have to go _now_."

"Wait, why? What's happening?"

"Morgan, look for more of those suits. There should be one for Peter too. Nic, next to the TV, the case that holds all the DVDs, pull it all the way out. There's a weapons rack with stuff that should be easy to get the hang of. Cass, I'm gonna need you to override the computer in that study upstairs. Get in, get online, and find the surveillance system. The cars Morgan tinkered with last night are remote access. I want you to see if you can figure out how to transfer biometric control to you, Peter and myself. Peter--" Lana picked up the key to the shed and a matchbox "-- you and I are going to prepare the place for torching."

"Does anyone want to tell me what's going on?" Nicole asked.

"We don't have time to sit around the table and talk. Parker!"

Morgan grabbed Peter's arm. "Ask her to explain it to you. If she and I are on the same page, then she's right. I'll explain on this side. Go."

Peter nodded and followed after Lana. "El! Ellie, wait up!"

"I blocked them all from memory," Lana said as she struggled to open the lock, "I hated hearing the stories. I listened because Morgan liked to hear them and she liked to talk about them."

"What stories?"

"Stories about the Black Widow."

Peter's eyebrows shot up as Lana disappeared into the shed. "Wait, so you knew about your mom?"

"I never knew it was her and after my mom stopped putting Morgan and I to sleep with the stories, I sort of just shut the whole thing from my brain. I refused to even think about it."

"Your kill switch," Peter said softly.

"What?"

"Your kill switch. It doesn't turn you into someone else. It resurfaces memories you thought you shut out. You have a mental block to all of this. Your own mind is divided. That's why you don't remember doing what you do."

Lana frowned for a second. "That's ridiculous," she said, passing a large bottle of gasoline to Peter.

"Explain anything to me, Lana. How you strangled someone with your feet and hands chained. How you came up with the idea to fry an entire building without a second thought. How you broke someone's neck with _your legs_. How you knew what those bracelets were called. How you knew you'd find gasoline behind that wall. More importantly, why we need to torch the place."

"I can actually explain the last one," Lana said, passing a second container to Peter and picking up two. "Remember I told you my mom used to tell us stories? I'm beginning to think every word was true. And if I'm right, she used to hide out here once. This place was a. . ."

"Safe house?"

"No, not really. There were these guys, this group, that knew about this place. My guess is they're the same guys that took us. That's how they knew her. Anyway, last night, when you and Morgan came from here to the house, you tripped a wire. I heard it go off and didn't think much of it so I just . . . broke the box. Point is, according to my mom, that signal went straight to those guys. They probably know we're here. We're burning everything so they can't trace us. Typical Black Widow thing to do, by the way. I'll tell you more once we get into the hospital labs. Go through all the rooms and make sure you've strewn as much paper as possible. Drag the curtains into the gasoline too. I'm going to mark a trail. Don't worry, I think I know what I'm doing."

With that, Lana was gone. Peter glanced at the cannisters in his hand before deciding to listen to Lana. She was the one that had gotten them out of the building. He trusted her.

Probably with his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's who the place belongs to. Cool. 
> 
> Okay, real talk. You guys want the link to the playlist for this book (that currently only has 4 songs but will gain more over time)?


	16. Chapter 16

"Sound check," Lana said, tapping the device in her ear, "can everyone hear me loud and clear?"

They nodded. Peter was fiddling with his suit.

"Someone help Parker with the holster, please."

Morgan sighed and walked towards him while Lana turned to Cassie. "Did you get it right with the cars and the bike?"

"Mhm. El . . . you don't have to--"

"If I don't, who does? Look, whether I like it or not, I know this place better than any of you. Besides, you know I like being in charge."

Nicole was pleased to see a grin on Lana's face. If that switch was still there, at least it wasn't fully flipped.

"I assume none of you know how to fire a gun?"

Even Peter shook his head. "Do you?"

"In theory, yes. In practice, not in the slightest. They're pretty and sleek, but probably more dangerous in our hands than in here. We'll leave the guns. Nic, you took lessons for these when they came to the school."

Nicole bounced giddily as Lana held up several sets of shuriken.

"They're safest in your hands. Don't throw them unless you absolutely have to, okay?"

Nicole smiled and nodded as she found somehwere on her suit to keep her new weapons.

"Em, you get to keep the electroshock batons. Just aim and hit like hockey. Go for the legs or the neck. If you can't kill, maim. Got it?"

Morgan nodded and slipped the batons in place.

"Cass, you like blowing things up, don't you?"

"Oh, boy. Yes, I do."

Lana grinned as she tossed Cassie a belt. "Look after them. Don't want them going off around your waist. Parker, once we get to the hospital, you'll be able to manufacture web fluid, right?"

"Yeah. What about you?"

Lana held out her wrists. "I got my momma's jewellery. You four decide amongst yourselves who's riding shotgun with who. You'll have to take the longer route to have to throw them off -- no, I _know_ they're coming after us, no arguments. Take the cars and follow the trail I set. It'll lead up to Crittenden. Head west on Crittenden until you get to East River. North on East River and follow that until you get to a circle about five minutes in. Take the first exit onto Kendrick and you should eventually see road signs to the hospital. Follow those and wait for me in the hospital coffee shop. It's called Finger Flakes or Finger Lakes for Flaky Lakes or something Coffee Roasters. I'll leave another trail east on Crittenden and lose them around Monroe Community College and head up to the hospital via Henrietta West. Got it?"

"How and when did you memorise those routes?" Peter asked, eyes wide.

Lana rolled her eyes. "Didn't I give you all a set of contact lenses?"

"I assumed they were in case we were blind which we aren't," Cassie said.

"You numbskulls. For someone who watches a lot of movies, Parker, you're dumb. Put the lenses in! We don't have time to hunt for the glasses. They're. . ."

"Oh, hell, you want me to put a computer in my eye?!" Peter shouted.

Lana raised an eyebrow. "Free internet?"

"Eugh. It's like you hate us."

"Wait, I know these," Morgan said, as she searched the living room for a reflective surface to put her lenses on. "Your mom mentioned them, only a few times, though. Aren't they like supercomputers with unlimited range?"

"Yeah."

"She said one of "the agent's" contacts developed it."

Lana laughed softly. "She called the contact a princess. We should ask her about this stuff when we get home."

Peter was still complaining about the lenses when they left the house. He had just begun to wonder if he needed to pry Morgan off Lana when the girl let go of her sister. Despite what Lana said, he and Nicole agreed to wait for her. They parked the cars within the trees along the trail and killed the engines. If Lana was right, they'd wait out the chase and follow her route.

Lana lit a match and admired the flame. She blew it out. Leaning against the bike, she stared up at the clear sky.

"Why are you still here?"

There was silence for a while before Nicole piped up. "How did you know?"

"You put trackers in the comms," Peter said, "didn't you?"

"So we can locate each other!"

"Yeah, on our eye-maps."

"Cass, don't-- don't call it an eye-map, please."

"Why? Does it creep you out, Em?"

Lana smiled to herself as they bickered with each other. She dragged her gaze from the sky -- and her attention from the map -- when she heard the sound of an engine. She looked out into the tree line and made out five vans and two motorcycles.

"Oh, this is gonna be fun," she murmured, mounting her own bike and slipping the helmet on.

"Where are you going?" Morgan asked as they watched the red blip move away from them.

Lana ignored them and grinned when she saw the van swerve to avoid colliding. They chased her through the trees and back past the house. She saw three of the five vans stop -- probably to check the house for the others. As she curved around the trail she made, she lit a match and dropped it.

The other four watched, hidden, as Lana sped past them. They counted two vans and two motorcycles follow. They jumped slightly when the flames jumped higher than the van before lowering to the ground and slithering back towards the house.

Lana laughed as she just caught footage of the three vans exploding before flames consumed the surveillance system on the house. She reached Critrenden and turned left. When she looked back and saw all four vehicles following her, she smiled.

"Move out, I have them all on my tail. Follow the route I programmed into your lenses. I'll meet you at the coffee shop. No. Arguments."

* * *

By the time Steve, Sam and Bucky made it to the house, it had already been up in flames for twenty minutes.

They didn't have the luxury of cars or fast bikes. They'd started moving as soon as they heard the vehicles go by and they began to sprint when they heard the familiar sound of explosions.

Still, they arrived in time to see the after effects of Lana's work. Only this time, Bucky recognised the area.

"_Shit_," he whispered to himself.

"Get back to the jet," Sam called, "Vis is running a match for the DNA sample and the brothers think they're closing in on Killian."

Steve had to drag Bucky from the burning building.

~~||~~

  
Lana laughed as she zipped between the cars. Her pursuers didn't care about subtlety any longer and bulldozed their way through. Lana glanced back and made a quick turn into an alley. The motorcycles followed and the vans continued on, probably to cut her off on the other side.

"Widow," one of the riders hissed after removing her helmet.

Lana made sure her lenses properly caught the woman's face -- just in case she needed it later.

"What's your deal?" Lana asked.

"Wrong," the other rider said, removing his helmet, "the Widow's child."

"No, seriously. What's your deal with my mom?"

"Hold your fire," the woman said into her mic, "we want the child alive."

"I have a name," Lana said, annoyed. Beneath that, she hid the realisation that they thought she was her mother and were prepared to gun her down. "Okay, I have a peace treaty for you."

The two riders glanced at each other. They ducked when it looked like Lana threw something at them both before spinning her bike and speeding towards the vans. Assuming she had only done that for a distraction, they didn't notice the discs stuck to the body of their bikes.

Lana took a hard turn just as one van pulled up on the other side of the alley. With the two vans behind her and the two bikes on either side, Lana searched her body for the remote. She laughed maniacally as the two bikes shuddered and sparked, throwing their riders off. The vans swerved to avoid the fallen agents. Lana picked up speed, heading straight for the intersection.

She saw a truck coming up ahead. Logic told her to make another hard turn. Adrenaline told her to push forward. She closed her eyes briefly and offered a prayer before pulling all her weight down. When she righted the bike on the other side of the truck, she laughed.

"Oh, man! I thought I was gonna die for sure!"

She heard sputtering and incoherent sentences on the other side of the radio. She smiled before ducking into an auto shop and closed the gates.

"Hey!" The owner called, "you can't do that! You hav--"

Lana shook her curls free from the restraint of the helmet and turned to see why the owner had shut her thick accent up. "I have what?"

"You're not her. I thought you were her."

"Who?"

"Romanova."

"Oh, I am -- Well, junior. If we're talking about the same person, then she's my mother."

The blonde nodded to the bike. "Where did you get that?"

"The bike? Oh, I found it at the . . . what would you call it? The house, whatever. Who are you?"

"I was a friend of your mother's and for a time, I was her opponent."

Lana raised her eyebrows. "Still doesn't answer my question. I'd say she never mentioned you, but she never mentioned anyone by name -- not even herself. Oh my shit, my dad's one of her friends. Double shit, my father might actually still be a major criminal."

The woman smiled. "My name is Yelena."

"What accent is that? Russian?" Lana was quickly distracted.

Yelena rolled her eyes. "Americans," she muttered under her breath, "I'm from Ukraine. _Your __mother_ is Russain. What's your name?"

"Lana Romanoff."

"Is that your full name?"

"No. It's Svetlana Dorothy Romanoff."

"Eh?" Yelena frowned, trying to make sense of the name.

"Oh, my name's anglicized. It doesn't follow Russian patronyms."

"Ah. Well, you see? First name is Russian. What do you want?"

"I'm currently trying to outrun two SUVs. You think you can make this a little less . . . bold?"

Yelena shrugged. "You'll have to do something for me."

"I don't like the sinister way you just said that. What do you want?"

"When you get out of this pickle, when you see your mother again, you give her this address. You tell her I am waiting to see her for almost twenty years."

"Oh. I can do that."

"And wear one of these," Yelena added, tossing a bag from the table nearby at Lana, "your hair is . . . recognizable."

"Aw, come on! I hate wigs!"

"You'll hate being dead even more," Yelena said, walking to the bike. She knelt down beside it and ran her fingers over the bright red symbol on the black body. "Hello, моя симпатична."

Lana sighed and set the bag down on the table. She rummaged through the bag. "So, green is less noticeable than red?" she asked, holding up a wig of said colour.

"I said recognizable, not noticeable. They are tracking you, маленька Романова, they will look for recognisable features. The red hair, the Black Widow symbol on the bike. What do you think of black? Matte black?" Yelena studied the bike. "Or perhaps crimson?"

"A colour swap?" Lana asked, staring a black wig in the bag, "sounds great."

~~||~~

  
Natasha stood in front of several holographic screens, arms folded. "We think we found Killian," Loki was saying in one of the smaller ones, "or at least a trace."

"We're bringing you an agent," Thor said, "he's got Extremis, but a good hit to the head knocked him out."

"Okay. Ring us if you need backup on the way here. Scott and Clint are itching to do something."

The screen shut down and vanished. Tony wrapped an arm around Natasha and stared at the largest screen. He kissed her shoulder. "Think it's her?"

"I mean, that's my bike -- and that _looks_ like my hair."

The lab doors opened to Bucky. "The house was on fire," he said instantly, "Steve said we'd go back soon, hopefully to find something worth salvaging. He called it in with a fire department. I should've known they went to the retreat. The alarm tripped and I ignored it because-- are you watching old footage of your runs in Rochester?"

Natasha raised her eyebrows at Tony before turning to Bucky. "No. This was live about seven minutes ago. Come watch this."

The three of them watched as Natasha rewinded the footage. They saw the red-haired figure drop and slide under the passing truck.

"Definitely not you. It took you three years to learn and you still can't do it."

"She did that for the first time," Natasha said, "she's getting wilder with each passing minute. You saw the footage at my house, what she did. Tell me you don't think she set the house on fire."

"She's not an arsonist," Bucky said firmly.

"She's not a murderer either, but you saw the tapes. Buck, she killed someone with her _legs. _She is dangerous, wild, unpredictable and still missing."

Bucky studied Natasha. "Are you implying that the others aren't safe around her?" he asked softly.

Natasha shrugged. "Not even you were safe around me when I was--"

"Nat. That was you. This is Lana. She grew up in a city. She grew up surrounded by pastel colours and bright toys and children's cartoons. She spent her whole childhood with you -- and Tony, here -- and never once tried to risk a single thing for anything else. So yeah, she's a little bit off the rails. Who isn't? If anything, I'm pretty sure they're safest _with_ her. You saw the footage. She only bit and scratched until it was her sister's and her friends lives on the line. She's got better control than you and I combined. Just focus on looking for them, okay?"

Natasha sighed. "Okay."

"Good, ready for the bad stuff?"

"This is already bad," Tony said, gesturing to replaying footage of Lana ducking under the truck.

"I may have an idea who Aim is working with."

"Yeah?"

"Hydra."

"_No_."

"What's Hydra?"

Natasha stared at the screen, at the two vans chasing Lana. "I thought they were gone."

Bucky shrugged. "Cut off one head. . ."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AH HA HA HA HA AHHABAHAHAHA 
> 
> LOOK WHO IT IS, HYDRA!!!! Also, Yelena??? Love her.


	17. Chapter 17

From their booth by the window, they watched as a sleek crimson bike parked up between the two convertibles.

"That's not El," Cassie said, "is it?"

"Can't be," Morgan said, "I mean, it could be a wig, but when did El have time to even get one with the chase? And the bike . . . it was black when we left the house."

They watched as the rider took off her helmet and hung it on the left handle. She scratched her head, scrunching up her nose as her wine lips turned downwards. Dark eyes scanned the coffee shop before walking to the door. They shifted further into the booth when she sat down across Morgan on the end. Her dark eyes flickered before they shifted back to sparkling green.

"I had a run in with one of my mother's old . . . aquiantences."

"I didn't know the lenses could do that," Morgan said, staring into Lana's eyes.

They flickered a few more times and Morgan was staring into strawberry swirls.

"That is so cool."

"Her name's Yelena. She taught me. Apparently, she's the one who 'upgraded' the lenses. Anyway, I ducked into an auto shop and it happened to be hers. She revamped the bike and gave me the wig to throw off the guys chasing me. It worked. We ended up at the same traffic light. One of them even waved at me. I flipped her off."

"Wow," Peter said, "you just keep getting cooler with every passing minute. Okay, everyone got the plan?"

"Cass and I will stay in the lobby. We cause a scene at reception if need be," Nicole said.

Lana nodded. "I'll follow you and Morgan down to the labs and keep watch on the corridor."

"Right. Peter and I will get into the labs and while the tests are running, Peter will create the web fluid he uses."

"Perfect," Peter said, "two hours should be enough. If you don't hear anything from us in two hours, hit plan B."

"Wait, what's plan B?" Morgan asked.

"Run like hell," Lana said.

"Good. I say we grab lunch first."

"With whose money?" Cassie asked, frowning at Nicole.

Nicole looked up from the purse she was rifling through. "Some cougar was harassing Peter outside while you and Em came in to look for seats. We think the cars attracted her attention. Anyway, I swiped her purse when she wasn't looking -- can I borrow that wig? I'm going to get us drinks and I need to look like my ID, don't I?"

Peter turned to stare at Cassie.

"What?"

"I'm waiting for you to unveil some hidden or recently developed skill."

Cassie rolled her eyes.

* * *

"Answer the damn question!" 

Tony refused to let his surprise show as Natasha rammed the butt of her gun into their captive's face. Her emerald eyes popped as her only visible feature. It made her look all the more deadly.

"Where is he?!"

The Extremis agent grinned. "Who?" he asked, feigning innocence.

Natasha stared at him for a second. "Drown him," she said, walking away. "Eugh, I got blood on my gun," she muttered to herself.

Jarvis glanced to the side at Tony. "You look like a statue, sir, might I suggest a warm cup of tea?"

Tony turned away from the screen. "You can drop the butler act, Jarvis, I--"

"I'll have one," Wanda said, walking past. She smiled at Tony and hung her arms around Jarvis's shoulders. "Vis makes the _best_ tea I have ever had. Very soothing, especially for nerves. Always had a cup before doing something."

Jarvis shrugged. "I won't argue."

"And it's not a butler act," Wanda continued, enlarging the screen showing Natasha and Sam with the Extremis agent. "He's always been like that. Of course, _we_ were never called sir and ma'am. Oh, look, they're doing Dunk 'n Dive."

"They're doing what?" Tony asked.

"It's a technique Romanoff uses to extract information. Steve finds it humiliating and embarrassing. The rest of us find it a good show. Sam's always had those old carbon-fiber wings -- oh, by the way, a very nice touch on the new ones you've built, sir, the colour is fantastic -- anyway, Romanoff asks her questions and if she gets an answer she doesn't like, Bucky gets to dunk and Sam takes them for a dive. It's rather effective."

"And here comes the dive," Wanda said, watching the screen as if she were watching a show on TV, "excellent throw from Wilson."

"Go put the kettle on," Jarvis said, "I don't work for you, you know."

Wanda stuck her tongue out at Jarvis. "Oh, Tony, Pietro said to list everyone you can that may have pissed Killian off."

"Why?"

"Word is they're going to pin the kidnap and murder on someone who, I quote, betrayed every last drop of trust he had to give."

"_Murder_?!" Tony cried, standing up sharply  
He knocked over his chair in the process, but only Wanda seemed to notice that.

"Did . . . did we not mention it before?"

"_No_! Whose murder?!"

"The kid, the one from Queens. According to our dirty cop, they were supposed to drop his body off somehwere out of state. Are you sure we didn't mention it? I thought I already told you about it."

"Murder was never mentioned," Jarvis said, "not once. I think you ought to take a nap and maybe a break from this. You've most likely overworked yourself, dear."

Wanda nodded slowly. "Okay. Yeah. Just . . . see if you know anyone who might be at risk. Since they didn't -- I hope -- murder the kid, things could spiral out of control."

"We'll take it from here, Wanda, you get some rest. You've done brilliantly getting this far. Once you've rested, you can get right back to work."

Tony turned away from the pair and watched as Natasha turned away from the man on the ground. She sighed before turning back, aiming her gun at him. "Since you're in the mood for games, let's play. This is probably the most basic gun I have in my arsenal. Ever heard of Russian Roulette, Savin? I'm sure you have."

The man, Savin, spat blood near Natasha's feet.

"Eugh," she mumbled, stepping away.

"And if you shoot yourself?"

"Oh, no, I was just asking if you knew the game. We're not playing Russ-- do I look like a fool to you? I have seven confirmed murders on my name, you idiot. You think I'm going to do something as stupid as play a lethal game of chance?"

"Get on with it, _Widow_." 

Natasha lifted her head to Steve, who was glaring on with a look that Natasha knew meant he didn't like what she, Sam and Bucky were doing. "Don't you just _adore_ it when they spit your name so venomously? Anyway, three bullets, six chances. There's a chance you'll die. Where's Killian?"

"What makes you think I know?"

"Wrong answer," Natasha sang. The bullet hit the concrete just beside Savin's hand. "Oh, I missed. Try again?"

"I don't know where Killian is."

"Tha was really convincing," Natasha said earnestly, her voice affirming the patronising pout she no doubt wore. She fired again, this time actually aiming for his hand. There was a loud click. "Oh, a blank. Aren't you lucky?"

"I'm telling you, I don't know."

"Are you really gonna make me do this?"

"I'm not making you do anything."

"That's true. Oh, another blank. Look, your stakes aren't looking so good right now. You should probably try giving me the answers I'm looking for."

Savin glared up at Natasha.

"Look, sweetheart, I've been where you are. I know what you're thinking. What's the best way to get that gun away from her? What's the best way to escape from here? I'm just wanting you now, if you try to use your Extreme Stupidity to whatever, I'll put a bullet in your brain. I know people who know stuff, and my sources tell me not even Extremis can regenerate brain cells. Just making sure we're clear. Another try?"

"You think he tells us where he's going?" Savin spat, "I don't know where he is!"

Natasha sank a bullet in his thigh. "Oh, it's fifty-fifty now," she said, aiming at his head. "This might be your last chance. Where is he?"

From the safety of his living room, Tony watched the screens carefully. In the makeshift interrogation room, Steve, Sam and Bucky trained their eyes on Savin. Natasha watched as the gears turned in his head, debating whether or not he should talk.

"Tick tock, Savin. I haven't got all day."

"Look. I don't know where he is-- BUT! . . . But, I do know that he has a lab somehwere in Bronx. He heads there often. It's your best bet."

Natasha took a few seconds to lower her gun. "That's the smartest thing you've said since you woke up, you know that? Also, ome more question and if I don't like the answer, I'm using your body for sport. Why'd you take all four girls and the Queens kid?"

"We didn't do the kidnapping," Savin said, nervously eyeing Natasha's gun, "I wasn't even in Rochester when--"

"But you knew they took them to Rochester. Who handled the kidnapping?"

"I don't know. Two of 'em were Extremis agents. The rest were Hydra agents."

"So Hydra _is_ working with Aim? I thought the entire scheme tumbled."

"You can't kill an organisation like Hydra."

"Whatever. Why? Why work together? What does Aim and Hydra both want that they need each other?"

Savin grinned. "I believe you said you had _one_ question."

Natasha fired. She grumbled under her breath at the click. "Answer my questions and maybe I'll have mercy on you."

"I don't know."

Natasha stared at him. "What do they want with the girls?"

Savin hesitated. "Aim only wanted Stark's kid. Hydra wanted Romanoff's. The other two were . . . leverage, I suppose. Bargaining chips to get Romanoff to comply, though I have no idea what they want with her. Honest."

"Except that didn't work out, right? Hydra trashed the Aim lab and re-kidnapped the girls and Parker?"

Savin frowned. "That was a Hydra facility housing only three Aim scientists. Those children had help from someone."

Natasha glanced at Bucky. Neither made a sound and while Natasha's face remained hidden, Bucky's expression remained flat. She turned back to Savin. "I assume you'll say you don't know if I ask you anything about Hydra, so I'll stick to what you should know. Why does Aim want hands on Morgan Stark?"

"Experimental enhancements to the the Extremis serum. She was supposed to be the test subject."

"Was? Nevermind. Why Morgan?"

"Aim offered Tony Stark the opportunity to be part of Extremis once and he chose to wall away from greatness."

"So you attack his _seventeen-year-old kid_? Wh-- what -- where is the logic?! You know what, I don't even want to hear it. Do with him what you will."

Natasha walked towards the door. She turned back and headed for Savin. "Actually, I do want to hear it. What's your excuse?"

"Morgan Stark is a perfect candidate for Extremis. Both her mother and father are compatible with the serum."

"You know, I thought Hydra was the lowest of the low. But at least, with all their indoctrinating and mental manipulation, they never chemically altered the DNA structure of a _child_. I kind of want to throw you out the window and I kind of want to blow your brains out. Instead, I'm going ask my dear friends to drop you off from whatever height they feel like and wherever they feel like. Oh, and leave you barely alive, but enough that you get to Killian and you let him know his days are numbered. Have fun, boys."

Tony was still watching the empty room when Natasha walked in, black cloth in one hand, glass bottle in the other. "Tony?" 

  
"I thought you really were going to kill him," Tony said softly.

"So did I. But then I figured, why waste a messenger?"

Tony turned around to see Natasha standing a little behind the sofa. "Doesn't it bother you?"

"The killing?"

Tony nodded.

"It stopped bothering me a long time ago. I've told you all the things I've done with my family over the years, but I never told you about Hydra. About Bucky and I."

Tony shrugged. "Now's a good time as any."

Natasha smiled and walked around the sofa to sit on the other end. "I guess so."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, look. It's five chapters left.


	18. Chapter 18

"RUN, BITCH! _RUN_!"

Cassie glanced at Nicole. "They're coming," she said.

Nicole turned to the group of teenagers and children in front of her. "So, yeah, we cleared it with hospital staff. We just want our project to look as authentic as possible. All you guys have to do is play dead or play zombie. We have the cameras set up already. In about twenty seconds, three of our other group members will come through. As the 'infected' your job is to attack the next lot of people. Got it?"

They cheered. Nicole smiled. "Okay, action!"

Lana grabbed Nicole's hand and Morgan grabbed Cassie's. The sisters nearly pulled the two off their feet. Peter glanced back to see an angry crowd of people attack the people that had been chasing him while hospital staff tried to restrain them.

"What did you do?!"

Nicole laughed. "We organised a mob! Go go go go!"

They sprinted through the coffee shop, damaging at least one booth, and nearly yanking the door handle off. None of them bothered to even open the car doors.

"Give me back my wig," Lana said, holding out her arm to Nicole.

Morgan had started to shake in excitement. "I've always wanted to jump into a car like that!"

Lana almost had the helmet over the black wig when Nicole grabbed her arm. "Where are we going?"

"I'll let you know later, just drive damnit! And split up!"

Despite Lana being amused and laughing, they didn't chance taking her any less seriously than they did when she looked ready to commit murder.

"Head into an alley," Lana said a few minutes later, "both of you."

"Done," Peter and Nicole said.

"Okay, Yelena said the cars had a cloaking system. You think one of you can figure it out? I'm working on the bike but I'm not sure. I'll just stick with the wig."

"I think I got something," Nicole said, "Peter, feel around under the wheel. There should be a button. Try that."

After a few seconds Morgan shouted, "It worked! Car's _green_!"

"Ours is pink!" Cassie cried, laughter echoing her words.

Lana grinned. "Okay, one more thing Yelena said. The lenses have a linked communications system. I'm just not sure how to activate-- gah!" Lana almost fell off the bike when she saw four little windows bearing still photos of the other four's faces.

"I think I got it," Morgan said. "Are those -- are those our vitals? What are these lenses made of?"

"Stark tech could never," Cassie teased.

"It totally could, given time. Okay, where to? We can't run disguised forever."

"We should probably wait out the drama in a motel," Peter suggested, "I don't know about you girls, but I'm beat, my previous bed went up in flames several hours ago, and I'm not gonna manage to drive all the way back to New York now."

"A motel it is," Lana said, "find a phonebook and head to the last listing. Wait in the parking lot once you get there. See if you can figure out the appearance modifications. Yelena said one or both should have that system. See you in an hour, max."

Making sure her curls were still hidden under the wig and helmet, Lana sped out of the alley.

* * *

"_In recent news, Strong Memorial Hospital appeared to be under attack from a mob of violent individuals aged eight to __about__ seventeen._"

"Wait, turn that up," Jarvis told Pepper.

"_One individual claimed that they were told it was for a school play and that the 'mob' was cleared by hospital security. When security attempted to intervene, they assumed it was part of the act and lashed out on security. Fortunately, neither the children nor staff were seriously injured. Police are unsure at the time who orchestrated the faux mob. On to the weather with_\--"

"Wait, pause!"

Pepper paused the news broadcast. "Do you want the remote?"

"Oh, yes please."

Pepper leaned back and stretched her arm out with the remote. Jarvis frowned at the TV as he stood behind the couch, rewinding the footage. "Seb, can you zoom in and enhance the footage?"

"I can," Tony's voice said. Seb continued in Natasha's voice. "Where would you like me to zoom in?"

"The fleeing kids. Bottom left corner, please."

"One moment," Pepper's voice said. Pepper's eyes widened when she heard her own voice.

"Mr Stark hasn't programmed the Stark E-Brain vocal capabilities as yet. It's using collected audio from over the years to generate it's own voice. Sometimes it speaks in Morgan's or Lana's. I've had to block their records to stop from Seb using their voice patterns to speak. Tony and Nat-case weren't taking it very well."

Pepper nodded.

"Digital enhancement complete," Tony's voice called out.

"I knew it!" Jarvis shouted, bouncing just once ever so slightly. "I knew it was them!"

Pepper frowned. On her phone, she pulled up the missing persons reports that had been published in the newspaper days ago and compared the five photos to her screen. "That doesn't look like any of them. Look, we sent out their most recent photo and Tony got in touch with the kid's aunt for his most recent photo. I mean, Cassie's the only blonde but her hair is _pink_, for one thing. None of them have _that_ dark hair and the guy in the footage is barely visible."

Jarvis shook his head, delighted. "I taught the girls how to create fake temporary dye that catches on nearly any hair colour. Two or three washes should take it out completely. The dark hair is probably a wig. Tallest girl there, must be Nicole. As for what truly gave it away? Their suits. Those suits were specifically designed and redesigned for Natasha and Bucky years and years ago. It makes sense they'd each find one roughly in their size. Oh! BARNES!"

Pepper found herself staring at the empty spot where Jarvis had been a moment ago. He ran off, yelling through the tower for Bucky. He didn't even notice that he'd taken the remote with him.

* * *

Lana pulled up to the parking lot and waited a few minutes before deciding to get two rooms for them. She kept the wig on and made the booking under a false name, just in case their kidnappers had eyes and ears everywhere to search for them.

The motel only had one room.

Lana took it anyway, paying with cash from the purse Nicole stole at the hospital. She moved the bike to park just outside the door to their room. No sooner had she finished did the other two cars pull in from two different entrances. Lana wandered out into the lot to wave them over.

"I am so tired," Morgan whined, accepting Lana's help out of the car.

Lana tossed the motel key to Cassie. "There was only one available room and I figured we'd rather double up than drive around trying to find a different motel."

"Good call," Nicole said through her yawn.

"Is she snoring?" Peter asked, nodding to Morgan.

"Yeah."

Peter grinned. "Hold this," he said, passing Lana the backpack and taking Morgan. Lana jogged up to the door to hold it open for Peter. Once he had settled Morgan on the one bed, he turned to ask if there was a sleeper couch -- only to find that Lana was already sleeping on it.

"Hey, you share with your sister."

"Can't. I thrash too much in my sleep."

"It's true," Cassie said from the other bed, "everytime we sleep over, Nic and I either share with Morgan or we all camp in the living room. Lana _has_ to sleep alone."

Peter's jaw dropped. "I can't share with Morgan!"

"She won't mind," Lana said, waving her hand, "she's got a crush on you anyway."

"El!" Nicole cried, but she was grinning.

"If I wake up bruised, I'm pinching each one of you on the underside of your arms, where it hurts the most."

"Good night, drama queen," Cassie laughed, turning over and pulling the scratchy duvet up.

"Share, stingy," Nicole grumbled, pulling the duvet.

"If everyone isn't asleep in the next five minutes I am going to start flicking the lights until Morgan wakes up."

Cassie and Nicole fell silent at Lana's threat. Peter didn't quite understand, but he was too afraid to find out, so he kept quiet and tried to find sleep.

* * *

Near midnight, Bucky and Natasha burst into the hospital, looking frazzled and like they were mentally someplace else, eyes darting everywhere, trying to scan the lobby. Perhaps they were trying to map out a route, perhaps they were trying to figure out what the girls were doing in the hospital. Perhaps they were just unsure what they were looking for.

"Can I help you?"

The glanced at each other before walking over to the receptionist.

"There were a couple of kids in here earlier today," Natasha said, "we were hoping we could find out which way they went."

"Ma'am, all the children who partook in today's incident were accounted for by parents, guardians or siblings."

"But you didn't see five of them run out of the hospital like mad?" Bucky asked, "Four girls and one boy, all over sixteen?"

"Sir, I can assure you, all the children here today were--"

"I'm not talking about the rioting kids!" Bucky yelled, slamming his hand down kn the table. The receptionist jumped and her eyes grew to the size of saucers.

"Bucky!" Natasha hissed, pulling him away from the desk. She threw him a glare before stepping back up to the desk. "Look, we're not looking for any kids that were part of . . . whatever happened. We're looking for five teenagers that fled the hospital during the chaos."

"We're any of them patients?"

"Oh, I hope not," Natasha murmured.

"I could . . . I could check?" The receptionist kept glancing over Natasha's shoulder, jittery. She made eye contact with Bucky once and quickly focused on Natasha.

"Uh, okay. Um, try Stark."

"Stark? As in--"

"As in Morgan Stark."

"One moment, please."

Natasha glanced back at Bucky and gave him a glare that clearly said they would be discussing his behaviour later.

"There aren't any patients listed for Morgan Stark but there is a request for some blood tests and things of that nature. Did she have an appointment here around that time?"

"I actually don't know. Are the results ready?" Natasha hoped she sounded believable.

"I'm sorry, we can't divulge patient--"

"I'm marrying the girl's father, I think I have pretty solid access rights to her medical records." Natasha finished with a tight smile. "Check another name. Romanoff."

"No listings," the receptionist said quickly, having decided that the pair were not to be trifled with.

"Barton."

"There's a James Barton? And a Lucy Barton, but she's five."

"No. Lang."

"None."

"Can I have -- wait, one more. Try Parker."

"Sue Parker?"

"No."

"There's a George Parker, too."

"No, I'm looking for a Peter."

"No, sorry. No Peter Parker."

"Fine. Can I have my daughter's lab results now?"

The receptionist faltered. "There's no record of which doctor administered the --"

"Can I get directions to the labs, then?"

"The labs are actually closed right now. They'll open at seven tomorrow morning."

Natasha took a deep breath. She offered the receptionist as genuine a smile as she could muster. "Thank you for your help," she said, spinning on her heel and grabbing Bucky's arm in a vice-like grip.

He winced as she pulled him out of the hospital. "Have you always been this violent?"

"Yes. Get your mask on, we're breaking into the hospital labs. We get in, get the results, get out. If we don't find any results, grab anything that looks like it would've been part of a blood test. Surprisingly, I don't know what that entails."

"You've never done a blood test?"

"Never had the need."

"If we can't find anything?"

"Then we sneak back out. Duh."

"And if we trip an alarm? Or hospital staff catches us?"

"The it's plan B; run like hell. Look, if we find something in there and we get it to Bruce, he'll be able to study it. There has to be a reason the kids were here. I have a feeling we're not gonna like what we find out."

Bucky shrugged. "Shit happens, Nat-case. Looks to me like the kids are rolling with it better than us. Tell you what, ten bucks says they make it home before we find them."

Natasha raised an eyebrow. "You're on, mister."

* * *

"RUN, BITCH! RUN!"

Bucky couldn't help the laugh that slipped from behind his lips as Natasha pulled him out into the hallway and through the lobby. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the receptionist jump.

"What part of 'run' don't you understand?!" Natasha cried, almost flying right over the bike she tried to mount.

Bucky had to restrain himself from laughing out loud again as he hopped onto his own bike.

Many minutes later, they outran the security officers and the police cars, parking up in the cluttered lot of a run-down motel.

"Any chance we can get back to the jet without being seen?" Natasha asked.

"Unlikely. We landed near the old house's ruins. We'd have to go past the hospital to get there. We could just go all the way around, but we might as well just wait for Jarvis to pilot the jet here after he wakes up.

"You think they have rooms?"

"We can check. I'll be surprised if they don't. How many people want to stay at a place called 'Zzzz'? With four 'z's. I don't trust them already."

Natasha swung her leg over the bike and walked it into a parking bay. "Quit being such a drama queen. I'm going to see if there's a room. Don't smoke too many cigarettes while I'm gone."

"Who said I was going to even smoke one?" Bucky called after her.

"You're addicted! Steve told me!"

"That son of a _bitch_!"

Natasha grinned to herself as she walked up to the front desk. "Hi, do you have any available rooms?"

The woman behind the desk shrugged. "Someone left a couple hours ago. We haven't sent room service down as yet."

Natasha furrowed her eyebrows. "You think it's clean enough?"

The woman shrugged again. "He was a businessman. Probably."

Natasha didn't bother asking what a businessman would want at a motel when he could probably afford a proper hotel room. "How many can the room fit?"

"There's two single beds and a double sleeper. Probably four people. How many you with?"

"Just two. I'll take the room."

The woman slid a book to Natasha. "Name and phone number please. Just in case we need to get hold of you while you're out."

Natasha nodded and picked up the pen. Out of old habit, she scanned the names. She remembered the days when she would pair up with one of the others, when they'd get split and they would head to the last motel in the nearest phonebook. She smiled to herself as she remembered indirectly telling those stories to Lana -- and Morgan.

She wrote her own name, not bothering with a false identity, beneath an Alex Nicholas. Smiling and nodding her thanks, she dropped the deposit on the counter and grabbed the key.

Half an hour later, she was almost asleep when Bucky opened his mouth.

"So, you're marrying Tony, huh?"

"Shut up and go to sleep."

"Does he know about this?"

"Shut _up_!"

"I'm just saying. You should be more honest with the guy. How long into the marriage will it be when he finds out you're married? Eleven years?"

Bucky got hit the face with Natasha's spare pillow.

"Next time, I'll use my helmet."

"I'm asleep, don't mind me."

The silence lasted about five seconds.

"So, will he find out before or after the wedding?"

"GO TO SLEEP!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Pepper being supportive of their kids' other parent being together gives me life


	19. Chapter 19

"Breakfast!" Peter called, kicking the door closed behind him.

Four teenage girls groaned and grumbled as they rolled over in their spots and promptly went back to sleep. Peter made a round of the room, waking them up one by one.

"Get up, losers. Tonight we head home."

"Ugh," Lana grumbled, rolling over again, "_finally_."

Peter sighed as he went to check up on Lana's shoulder wound. "Does anyone want to know about Morgan's superpowers?"

"I do!" Lana cried, sitting up and bumping her head against Peter's. "What the hell, Parker?"

"What do you mean, what the hell? You asked me to monitor your stupid cut!"

"Oh. Right. I did."

Peter rubbed his head and walked over to Nicole and Cassie. He tugged at the duvet. "I didn't wear Lana's stupid wig and get asked by three kids if I was still going to put my drag queen makeup on, for you to not eat the food I brought."

Morgan laughed into the pillow.

"I call shower!" Cassie suddenly shouted.

"What does she plan on changing into?" Nicole asked as Cassie sprinted like she was racing the others.

"Little miss over-prepared packed clothes from the house before Ellie and I set it for toeching. She packed the bags into the cars before we suited up."

"Huh. I'm next!"

Once they were all showered and dressed, Peter handed out the cheeseburgers and fries. "Desert consists of corn dogs I found on the way back. Enjoy, ladies."

They all sat around the coffee table as there weren't enough chairs for them all to sit at the dining table.

"So, whatever's giving Morgan her gifts isn't something I could identify. I've never seen anything like it."

"What was it like?" Nicole asked.

"It was . . . it was like her cells were repairing themselves. Like regeneration on a much, _much_ higher level. Kinda like lizards but so much more. Whatever's in her body could probably cure any disease. It's like every single cell is a stem cell. It could become anything. I'm eighty-three percent sure Morgan can regrow limbs."

"I find that hard to believe," Cassie said, grinning.

"Does everyone remember when Lana and Morgan thought it would be fun to fight in the yard? And Morgan had that deep gash across her lower back?"

Nicole shuddered. "That was worse than Lana's shoulder."

Peter nodded. He lifted his eyebrows briefly at Morgan, who sighed and turned around, lifting her shirt. Cassie's jaw dropped.

"Where's the scar?" Lana asked as Morgan fixed her shirt and turned back to her breakfast.

"There isn't one. That's what I'm saying. Whatever this is, it didn't just give her all that fire power, pun intended, it's saved her from probably everything except beheading."

"Beheading?" Cassie asked, "you mean like the guys at the warehouse? The ones Lana killed?"

"You think those guys had this too?" Morgan asked

"If they were experimenting," Nicole said, "there were definitely more of them. So, as far as you could tell, it's not hurting Morgan?"

Peter shook his head. "Normally, with wierd shit like this, there's the risk of your body not accepting those strange new things. I looked for signs of that in Morgan. There's none. It's like -- it's like you bonded with whatever it is."

"Are you calling me a mutant, Mr Parker?"

"Well, that depends, Miss Stark, does it bother you?"

"If it did, what would you do?"

Peter smiled. "Absolutely nothing . . . mutant."

Morgan blew a raspberry at him.

"Really?" Cassie said, "in front of my salad?"

Nicole stuffed a few fries in her mouth to keep herself from laughing. Lana grinned.

"Shut up," Morgan muttered, waving her hand in Cassie's direction. "Anyway, you wouldn't eat a salad if we paid you."

"Depends how much you're paying. My best friend's father likes to spoil her and her friends on birthdays. Speaking of, graduation is coming up."

Lana laughed. "If we can catch up on all our missed work."

"There's time," Cassie said, leaning back and scrunching up the cheeseburger wrapper.

"It's May," Nicole said, "finals are next month. If we don't make it back, like, today, none of you are passing this year, and I'll be first year college _again_."

"Wow," Peter said, "lives on the line, been kidnapped, starved, bruised and cut, experimented on, and you're all worried about _school_?"

"Listen, Parker, I refuse to die before finishing my education. I will graduate out of _spite_."

Peter grinned at Lana. "Oh, I believe you. It's Cassie I'm not so sure about. She's the laziest."

"Clearly you weren't counting yourself," Cassie said, sticking her tongue out at Peter.

"What about El?" Nicole said, "what do you think is her kill switch?"

"We think it's a mental thing," Peter said.

"When Morgan and I were little, my mom used to sometimes put us to bed with these stories of hers. As we got older, she stopped telling us bedtime stories. I hated listening to them, so when I stopped hearing them, I kind if blocked it all from memory."

"We're thinking it was a subconscious learning. Not specifically the skills itself, but the theory of it. The way Ellie knew almost everything about the house. All those stories, they were probably true. The fail-safes, the cars, the gasoline, the back-up plans. Everything Ellie knows probably came out of those stories."

"Still doesn't explain the skills, though," Cassie said, leaning against the couch behind her and Nicole. "I mean, even if you know all the theory, without practice, you can't _do_ anything."

"When El and I were seven, Dad sent us for martial arts training. In hindsight, it was probably because we never shut up at home and any kind of extra-curricular activity meant we'd be yapping elsewhere. I never picked it up, I didn't quite like all the kicks and punching and the work. It was around then that I got into hockey. I enjoy hockey so the work isn't really work, you know? Anyway, El picked up the training really well. She did it for about two years after, maybe two and a half. Maybe that's where she put it all into practice?"

"Why'd you stop?" Peter asked.

"Good at it, didn't like it."

"For someone so anti-violence, you're actually really violent."

Lana smiled. "Only when necessary."

"And how grateful we are for it," Cassie murmured, closing her eyes and tilting her head upwards.

"So now it's straight home?" Nicole asked.

"We've established that whatever's in Morgan isn't hurting her, so I say it's safe to head home."

Cassie gave a half-hearted cheer.

"We can't," Lana said softly, staring at an empty fries packet.

"What?" Morgan asked, smile frozen on her lips. "What do you mean? Why not?"

"We can't go yet. Not until we know we're not being chased anymore. I know that my mom was once this badass criminal or whatever, but that was like fifteen years ago. Whoever she used to team up with could be anywhere, there's no guarantee she has her old backup. We can't risk taking these guys right into Stark Industries. We'd be putting your dad at risk, Morgan. Clearly, they want to target him, why else would _you_ have been the guinea pig?"

In the silence, Lana studied the faces of her two best friends, her sister, and her new friend. None of them looked happy about it. Eventually, Peter sighed.

"So, I guess we're going to fight back, huh?"

"We can't do that either," Nicole said.

"Why not? We have Killer Lana and Arson Morgan."

"Cass. Have you ever seen either of them consciously tap into those skills? If we go after the guys chasing us, they'll have to make a conscious decision to tap into them. We can't risk each other like that."

"I know what we can do," Lana said.

"All ears," Morgan said.

"We can get help. Weapons, a little proper training, something easier to manage than a sports car."

"Yelena?" Peter asked, remembering the name Lana had told them in the coffeeshop at the hospital.

"It's worth a shot," Lana said, shrugging.

* * *

Yelena Belova was more than surprised to find five teenagers in the garage. She recognised the one with hair as black as the night. "You can't keep closing my shop, маленька Романова."

Lana pulled the wig off her head and shook her curls out. "The wig's been _really_ helpful, Yelena, thank you."

"What do you want?" Yelena asked, folding her arms.

"Help," Lana said, offering the blonde a pleading smile, "I need your help. You said you knew my mother a long time ago. That means you must know what she used to do, right?"

"The Black Widow is a mantle, we compete for it. Your mother won that title. I was just behind her. I could've done it just as well as she could. But she had a certain flair. Something specific about her. I was unable to perfect what made her the perfect candidate."

"Okay, fine, but you _can_ fight like her? So can you train us? My friends? Do you have weapons? Can we borrow bikes? I'm talking about _that_ kind of help."

Yelena rolled her eyes. "You are so much like your mother, маленька Романова. Come, I'll see what I can do."

Lana followed Yelena, motioning for the others to join. "Say, you wouldn't happen to be able to get in contact with someone for me, would you?"

* * *

Jarvis stared at the hole in the drywall. "I'll go and see if Mr Stark requires ice."

"Why?" Rhodes asked, "he's not the one that punched the wall."

"No, but he's the one who dragged Romanoff from the room."

"Ah."

While Jarvis left to find an ice pack for Tony, Rhodes dropped down on the couch with a heavy sigh. He could understand why Natasha was going around punching walls. He wanted to as well. Not only did they have no idea what was going on, but they now had confirmation that Morgan had been an Extremis test subject. Bruce told them that he couldn't make a judgement based on the small -- and old -- sample he'd been given, but he was fairly certain Extremis was killing Morgan.

Rhodes knew Bruce would need a fresh sample from Morgan if they were to truly know whether or not Morgan was surviving Extremis, but they couldn't get that if they couldn't find the kids. When the phone rang, Rhodes almost didn't pick up.

"Stark residence."

"_I'm__ looking for Romanova_."

"Who?" Rhodes strained to understand the woman's thick accent.

"_Romanova. Tell the Black Widow __I'm__ looking for her_."

"Now why should I do that? Who's looking for her?"

"_I will speak __only__ to Romanova. I __should__ think she __would__ want to hear __news_ _about__ her __daughter_."

Rhodes almost ran into three walls as he sprinted across the tower floor. "NATASHA!!"

With all the racket he caused, everyone who was staying in the tower crammed into the lounge to listen as Natasha asked Seb to put the call on speaker.

"Okay, I'm here. Where are they?"

"_Hello, Romanova_." Unlike when she spoke to Rhodes, the woman's voice was light and her smile could be heard. "_I didn't think it __would__ take your __child's_ _kidnapping__ for us to reconnect_."

Natasha frowned. "Yelena?"

"_The one and __only__, Widow._"

"Where are they? What did you do with them? You tell me right--"

"_You've__ always been __quick__ with your __judgement__. I did not take them. __They're__ not with me. Did you really think __I_ _would__ still be working __with__ Hydra?_"

"Yelena," Natasha said, straining to keep from blowing her top, "why did you call?"

"_Well, __I__ have information, __obviously_."

"And?"

"_The kid's pretty talented. She does the leg lock like you. Very good at strangulation, snapping __necks_ _and__ slicing throats. She'd be better if you __actually__ trained her_."

"Get to the point," Natasha hissed.

"_The point? Oh! They're going __after__ Hydra and Aim. They __could__ use some help_."

"They're what?!" Tony blurted.

"_Who was that? The __boyfriend__? Hello, Stark. Your midget's pretty talented too. Very quick learner. Also, you might want __to__ hurry. I __don't think_ _they're__ very far from their target. I activated the trackers in __their_ _lenses__, their bikes, and the suits. __You'll__ find them heading to an Aim base East Hampton in an old jet. Not that surprisingly, the Parker kid caught on to the basics pretty well. Oh, __I__ hope __I_ _taught__ him to land. . ._"

They were faced with a dial tone. After three seconds, the room erupted into chaos, shouting for the jets to be readied for flight as soon as possible, shouts for people to suit up, for someone to call the brothers, for someone to get a hold of Clint, Scott and Hope. Somewhere in the chaos, Natasha demanded her ten dollars from Bucky, who refused and demanded she had him ten dollars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeet reunions?


	20. Chapter 20

"Hey! You hot enough yet, Em?"

"For what?!" Morgan shouted in someone's ear, deafening them long enough to knock their head against the back of Cassie's busted bike.

"I need help, what do you think, dumbass!"

Morgan absently tased someone with the electroshock baton in her left hand. "Are you sure?"

Lana, though she was surrounded by Extremis agents, paused to shoot her sister a furious glare.

"Okay, then."

Morgan focused hard and channelled all the power she could, feeling the fire traverse through her nerves, from the tips of her toes to her fingertips. Taking aim, she let loose.

Lana stood her ground, holding one of the agents in front of her to shield herself from the flames. She yelped as something stuck to her ankle and tossed her up. She hung mid air for a second before falling back down.

"Are you two insane?!" Peter yelled once he'd caught Lana.

"Cute mask," Lana said, prodding the glass eye, "and yes. We are. I could've knocked my head, you know."

"Or burnt to a crisp," Peter said, unceremoniously dropping Lana near Cassie, "you're welcome!" he called as he swung off.

"Spiderman," Cassie said, "we should call him Spiderman."

"We should call him an asshole," Lana muttered, charging up her Widow's Bite again.

The chaos froze when Killian hinself showed up, with his hand closed around Morgan's throat as her feet just barely scraped the ground. If he lifted his arm any higher, he would be able to strangle her in less than five seconds.

Lana dropped the dead Extremis agent she had. "Let go of my sister!" she screamed, staring towards Killian. Nicole just managed to tackle Lana out of the line of fire.

"Did you think you were the only one that powerful, pet?" he spat at Morgan. She growled, but she wasn't brave enough to try fighting the man who could snap her neck.

Peter dropped down and picked Lana off the floor. "Anyone with a plan?" he asked, noticing the Extremis agents ringing around them.

Lana stood up straight, shooting up like a meerkat. She turned her head around, searching for the source of the sound she had heard.

They all jumped as a red and gold metal suit landed between them and Morgan, raising one arm and blasting Killian down. Morgan fell to the floor, scrambling behind the suit.

"Hands off, bastard."

"Dad?" Morgan whispered, staring up at the suit.

"_That's_ Tony Stark?" Peter hissed, glancing at Lana, who shrugged.

While the agents were distracted by the new arrival, Peter hurried to Morgan and snatched her off the ground. "Are you okay? How's your neck? Can you breathe fine? Did he hurt you? Are you okay?"

Morgan laughed. "I'm bleeding from three different cuts, Peter, my lungs are on fire, there are literal flames in my veins, my head is spinning and I may vomit. I've never been further from okay."

Peter exhaled heavily, squashing Morgan in a hug.

"Can't -- breathe."

"Sorry." He didn't actually let go of her.

Lana screamed when something whizzed past her ear. She turned back to see an agent drop to the ground. Glancing back the other way, she squinted through the throng of agents. The man with a gun stared at her from behind opaque glasses. She frowned, finding him somewhat familiar.

"You know, I thought I told you to be in bed by eleven."

Lana screamed and jumped again, turning to find herself facing her own reflection, albeit a little bit taller and a lot more hidden. "Ma!"

Natasha smiled behind her mask as she hugged Lana. She opened her arms further and waited for Cassie, Nicole and Morgan to inevitably join in.

"Is that really Dad?" Morgan asked, glancing at the suit of armour fighting Killian.

Natasha nodded. "He wanted to help us find you. I couldn't have stopped him even if I'd tried. Oh, look at you. Let us clean up here. There's a doctor in the jet. Peter, take them to the jet."

Peter was stunned. "You know who I am."

"'Course I do," Natasha said, letting go of the girls to pull Peter into a hug of his own. "Thank you," she whispered.

"Wait, what jet?" Cassie asked before Peter could inform Natasha that he'd barely been backup all this time.

Natasha pointed up one one hand, the other pressed to her ears. "Disengage retro reflector panels, Vis."

The earpieces in their ears crackled. Lana tapped hers a few times.

"Remote scramblers work wonders when your tech genius friends fiddle with it. You're patching into our private frequency as we speak. Barton, can you clear the area for landing?"

"Wait, Barton?" Nicole asked, frowning.

"It would be ny genuine pleasure," Clint said, firing explosive arrows from somewhere hidden.

"Dad?!"

"Oh, babygirl, I missed your voice."

"Holy shit!" Peter cried as the jet materialised near the explosions.

"Could someone ask his royal Hawk-ness to stop firing explosives at the jet?"

"Was that Jarvis?" Morgan asked, looking at Natasha.

"Peter, get the girls to the jet. Let Bruce have a look at you, too. We got this."

"There's only three of you," Peter started.

"Four," Lana said, remembering the masked man.

"Four of you. Five of us couldn't handle them. We can stay."

"Oh, baby, you're adorable," Natasha said, patting Peter's cheek, "but my family is on the way."

Lana grabbed Cassie's hand and pulled her out of the way just as something exploded nearby.

"Watch it, Lang! You almost blew Cassie's head off!"

Cassie shrugged. "I'm not even surprised."

"Look, we can handle this. We're professionals. Get in the jet. Now."

"Yes, ma'am," Peter said, feeling like Killer Lana was speaking to him. He grabbed Morgan's arm and gently pushed Nicole along. Once the ramp closed behind them, Morgan almost collapsed against Peter.

"Sit up here, Morgan," Bruce said as Jarvis lifted the jet.

Peter inhaled sharply. "You never said your mom knew Dr Bruce Banner," he wheezed to Lana.

"Actually," Bruce said, "I'm one of Tony's friends."

"Even better," Peter murmured.

Bruce helped Morgan up onto a table in the centre and quickly made sure she wasn't in any immediate danger.

"Let's take a look at you kids."

"I can help," Peter offered.

"He's amazing," Lana said, "he stitched up one of my cuts when we left the warehouse."

Bruce glanced at Peter. "Med kit's over there," he said, nodding to the bag, "see if you can stop Nicole's bleeding. Nicole, if you can, use your other arm to clean up Peter's cuts. Lana, put some pressure on Cassie's thigh. Cassie, see if you can clean the cuts on Lana's face."

While Jarvis hovered the hidden jet, periodically using the its built in-guns to fire down Extremis agents, Bruce oversaw the four of them treating each other's wounds while he tended to Morgan. He was quite impressed with their work on each other.

"They're all asleep," Bruce said, amazed. All he'd done was turn to put the med-kit away and the four of them took a seat on the benches. Peter sat in the middle, with Lana leaning on one arm and Morgan on the other. Cassie leaned against Morgan and Nicole's head rested on Lana's shoulder. Peter's head rested on Lana's, his arm around Morgan.

"Shall we take them home, Romanoff?"

Natasha paused decapitating an Extremis agent to confirm. "We'll meet you back at the tower."

* * *

Lana was itching all over. She felt like her entire body was covered in sand. Most of it was bandaged or plastered and she hated it. She wanted it off as soon as possible. She nudged Morgan, who was lucky enough to be bandage-free. "Can you share the Extremis?"

Morgan smiled. "Ha ha. Very funny. Probably not."

Cassie, who was laying with her legs over the back of the couch and her head centimeters above the floor, laughed. "If she could, I would've had first helping."

"Shut up," Nicole grumbled, nudging Cassie's head with her foot.

"Eww!"

"I, for one, have never been more glad to see a bland-ass living room. Though, Stark Tower couches would've probably been more comfy, right?"

"I'm still gonna get you that interview," Morgan said, shooting Peter a grin, "I didn't forget."

"I never doubted it. So, any reason we're being detained? In your living room?"

"Cops probably want to talk to us about our escape from the warehouses, the torching of the Rochester house, the attack on the hospital and the shootout we caused in East Hampton."

Cassie wrinkled her nose at Lana. "Wow. Kill the imagination, why don't you?"

Lana grinned.

The sound of the front door opening alerted them of their visitors, but none of them bothered to move a muscle from their relaxed positions. Lana was the only one sitting up, and that was because her body itched like crazy. She would give anything to have the bandages off. She had no idea how the others were coping.

The man that walked into the living room was a strange to everyone except Lana. "Mr Fury," she said, raising her eyebrows, "I didn't know you made house calls."

"He doesn't."

Lana gaped at her kindergarten teacher. Morgan sat up with a sharp gasp that sent shooting pains through her lungs.

"Ms Hill!" Lana said, "I haven't seen you in almost ten years!"

"We have one more surprise," Nick Fury said, gesturing to the third person to enter.

"Hey!" Morgan said, grinning widely. "Mr Coulson! Wait. Why are you all here?"

"More importantly, what's with the eyepatch and trenchcoat, matey?" Cassie asked, laughing at her own joke.

"Everyone needs a day job, Ms Lang. Some of us just use it as a cover."

"Cover for what?" Nicole snorted, "a secret government agency?"

"Precisely."

"Wait, what?"

Nick Fury presented a badge to the girls and Peter. "Shield has been operating under radar from before you kids were even born. We used to be on your parents' arse, Romanoff, but once your mother turned over for your sake, we stopped tracking the whole family. We've been trying to get Hydra for years. Your mother's job at the auction house entailed both appraising valuables and letting us know what she knew about Hydra -- for the first year, anyway. On behalf of Shield, we would like to thank you for your incredible effort in causing the end of Aim --"

"Do we get a medal ceremony?" Cassie asked.

"What part of 'under radar' didn't you get?" Hill asked. "We're not public."

"Do we get _medals_?"

"Do you . . . want medals?"

"What do you think, eyepatch?"

"Cass!" Nicole hissed, nudging Cassie's head with her foot again.

"What? The guy says he's from a government agency or whatever and wants to thank us for our contributions in being kidnapped, _I__ want a damn medal_!"

"Well, if you'd let Director Fury speak you'd know how we plan to thank you," Phil said, "if anything, you're more insufferable than when you were six."

"Give them a break, Coulson," Nick said, waving a hand towards Phil, "you didn't see the tapes. Agent Hill?"

Maria cleared her throat and waited until all their eyes were on her. "In light of the quick learning you all did this past week, your resourcefulness in quick exit strategies, your ridiculous but effective planning techniques and above all, your gifts, we have decided to select you as part of our new juvenile training program, should you choose to accept."

Cassie sat up so fast, her head began to spin. While she waited for the room to stop dancing around her, Nicole asked the question for all of them.

"Are you asking us if we'd like to _join_ \-- what was it? -- Shield?"

Nick nodded. "Should you complete your training, you'll be made official agents of Shield. You won't need medals when you've got official documents that may or may not overrule every office below the president himself."

"Now you're talking, Depression Cape," Cassie said, saying slightly. Nicole shot her leg out to keep Cassie from falling backwards off the couch. "I think we should wait for my head injury to heal first."

"You'll have until the end of June to discuss the matter with your parents."

"Why us?" Lana asked.

"Hydra is still at large," Phil said, "and your parents aside, Lana, you five are the only ones who have managed to escape Hydra in recorded history. Your knowledge is invaluable, but we understand if you'd like to just . . . be kids. I do believe that after this week, you're not quite the same. Shield is offering you the chance to strike back, but with proper resources, proper training, and with proper backup. Besides, your whole family has been extended an offer to work for Shield."

"When you say 'work for'," Peter said, "do you mean as official Shield agents or--"

"Allies. Should they wish to become fully-fledged Shield agents, they will need to go through regular training."

"You said skills earlier," Morgan told Maria, "but I'm the only one with Extremis."

"True," Maria said, "but with guidance, Lana could master an almost dead form of defence and a unique attack style. Cassie's skills when it comes to computers need just a proper push in the right direction. Nicole's got sticky fingers. I remember it being very handy for you when I was your teacher, you used to steal quite a bit without ever being noticed or being a suspect. Peter's a genius and with his web fluid, he could really make a name for himself."

"Think about it," Nick said, "you work hard enough, you might just surpass all our other agents."

Nick left a card on the coffee table and left, Maria and Phil in tow.

"What do you think?" Morgan asked, staring at the card with a single phone number on it.

"I think we should grill our parents about their sudden involvement in crime," Nicole said.

"I like that idea," Cassie said, nodding slowly. She wasn't about to risk getting dizzy again.

"So, anyone got Happy's number?" Lana asked.

Morgan laughed. "After the week we just had, I'm not going anywhere. Those guys can come to _me_."

"But Stark Tower," Peter whined.

They ended up calling Happy to get them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh ma gash two chapters left


	21. Chapter 21

Lana left the group of laughing people. Long ago had they discussed the kind of people their parents were, and they'd laughed at Jarvis' reenactment of Tony finding out. Natasha noticed Lana leave, but she also noticed the direction Lana was headed. She knew she should probably get up and join Lana, but something told her Lana should do it alone.

"Hi."

Bucky turned away from the empty bar. He smiled at Lana. "Hi."

"I noticed you don't stay where there's too many people."

"Not a fan of crowds."

Lana smiled as she hopped up on the barstool. "Mom always said I got that from my father."

"She never told you?"

Lana shook her head. "By the time I was old enough to notice her not answering the question, you guys had been gone for many years. I just . . . stopped wondering. What about you?"

"I don't know. It's not like _she_ didn't know. Whatever her reasons, it doesn't matter."

"Did she tell you? While we were gone?"

Bucky shook his head. "Nah. I put two and two together when you were about eight, maybe. Sue me, it wasn't like the identity of your father was something that plagued me. But by then, we'd already stopped speaking. We'd split up by then, all of us. I thought about visiting often enough, but I knew I'd bring trouble with me. Unlike your mom, I never quite gave up the lifestyle."

"So I've heard. But that was then. I'm part of it too, now."

"I heard the government wants to hire you."

"Shh, they're undercover."

The pair laughed together. From the couch, Natasha smiled as she watched them awkwardly decide if they were at the hugging stage yet. She laughed softly as she saw them give in and share a proper hug.

"Cute," Tony said, sitting down next to Natasha. "Makes sense where she gets her temper from."

"Lana doesn't have a temper."

"In comparison to you, she's got way more than a temper. You think he'll stick around?"

"He stayed away because none of us wanted our lives on our daughters. Now that she knows exactly what the past is . . . I think he'll stay." Natasha turned away from Lana and her father to grin at Tony. "Why? Are you jealous?"

Tony rolled his eyes. "Are you jealous of Pepper?"

"No."

"Exactly."

Natasha smiled and leaned her head on Tony's shoulder. "By the way, I like the suit. You should keep it around."

"Oh! I almost forgot!"

Natasha almost fell over when Tony stood up quickly.

"Hogan! Where's the box?"

Happy fished something out of his pocket and tossed it across the room. Tony climbed up on the coffee table to get attention, seeing as he was one of the shortest in the room -- not counting the teens. "Ladies and gentlemen, can I have your attention? I have an announcement!"

One by one, they quieted. Some took a seat, while others stood still and waited.

"This was supposed to be done approximately a week ago, but then some dickhead went and organised a kidnapping, so that threw everything else out the window. Now, I'm not one to advertise everything to the world, but seeing as we're all surrounded by family, your crazy lives have come to light, the kids are -- bruised and a little unstable -- but safe, and that Lana finally found her biological dad, I'd like to go one step further and make this an even bigger party."

Natasha would've covered her face if there had been other guests around. Given that it was, as Tony said, family, she let everyone see that she was the one dating the moron jumping off the coffee table and walking up to her.

"I've never done this before, so bear with me. Meeting you was a huge-ass accident and only because a six-year-old kid found an envelope before her dad did and demanded that he take her new best friend's mom to a fundraiser."

When Tony got down on one knee in front of Natasha, Wanda screamed as she repeatedly slapped her brother's arm. "Oh, oh, _oh_! Vis, get the camera!"

"These eleven years have been the best years of my life and I know it took forever, but it's happening now. I know that you've kept this whole other side of you a secret from me and that's fine. It doesn't matter. I still love you and I still want to marry you because nothing changes the fact that you are still the same woman I fell in love with eleven years ago."

Natasha covered her face with her hands when Tony opened the box, this time not at all because she was embarrassed by him.

"You can't say no, by the way," Tony said, shrugging, "you don't have enough points."

"Well, when you put it like that," Natasha said, smiling wider than she ever remembered.

"So, will you marry me?"

"Well, I can't exactly say no, can I?" Natasha asked softly, watching as Tony slipper the solitaire ring on her finger. He stood up and pulled her up from the couch.

Wanda began the chant that was quickly picked up by Hope first, then Maggie, then the whole room. "Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!"

They erupted into cheers as Tony and Natasha did just that. Morgan, who had suddenly appeared on Lana's other side, nudged her lightly. "Look at that, we're about to become legal siblings too."

Lana smiled and leaned her head on Morgan's shoulder. "I wouldn't have anyone else be my sister, Emmy."

"I love you, Ellie," Morgan said softly, dropping a kiss atop Lana's head, "killer instincts and all."

"Love you too, Zoku."

Morgan laughed, careful not to shake too hard with Lana's head on her shoulder. "I'm glad I made your mom go to the alumni fundraiser," she said as she watched Tony and Natasha ignore the congratulations circling them, while they stayed in their own bubble, whispering to each other.

"I believe you called it a halloumi fund-praiser."

"Shut up or I'll shred Alexei."

Lana lifted her head and gasped theatrically. "You want me to throw hands with Dinky?"

Morgan laughed. "Oh, how I miss being kids."

Bucky eyed them nervously. He wanted to remind them that they were still, in fact, kids, but he knew that was probably quite far off from the truth.

* * *

_one month later_

* * *

"And now, a few words from the 2022 class valedictorian, Svetlana Romanoff."

The audience politely clapped as Lana made her way up to the podium. 

"Go poster baby!" 

Lana shot a seething glare at Peter while Morgan smacked the back of his head lightly. Once she reached the podium, Lana smoothed out her page and smiled at the words. 

"You know, I've written this speech about ten times since April. I did the last rewrite at the beginning of this month. Thing is, everything changes. Sometimes it's people, sometimes it's places. But change is inevitable. The ones we need to focus on are the changes within ourselves. Every one of us has faced a challenge in our lives. For some of us, the biggest challenge was what to wear the next day. For others, it might have been actually waking up in the morning." She glanced down and mumbled, "some of us almost died last month, so there's that."

Peter flicked Morgan as she snorted way louder than she should've. Cassie grinned widely from beside Nicole, who was shaking her head slowly.

Lana smiled out at her fellow students. "When I look at us now, I see only how far we've come. For those of us who have been here all along, I remember our days from kindergarten, where we started. Look at us now, ready to go out into the world. The most important thing that I will carry with me is that family is everything. Family is the most important thing in the whole world. And family isn't always blood. So when I leave this school, when I go wherever life takes me, I know that my family is always going to be there for me, just like I'm always going to be there for them. And I think that's something we should all carry forward, because the world is a scary place filled with people who could be dangerous. It's up to us to change that. It's up to us to be better to make everything better. So go out there and be the best version of you, because if you don't do you, who will?" 

Peter whistled over the applause. Morgan wasn't about to let him upstage her, so she climbed on her chair and whistled even louder. 

Once all the photos were done and the air had settled, Nicole noticed someone standing wait in the doorway. She nudged Cassie. "We've got company." 

"I'll get the sisters, you get Peter." 

Once all five of them were together, they left the hall and eventually found Nick in the parking lot. 

"I'm surprised I didn't get any calls." 

"We were thinking," Lana said. 

"And?" 

Lana glanced at the others. "On behalf of all five of us, I would like to formally accept your offer. When do we begin?" 

Nick grinned. "Enjoy the summer holiday. Once your training begins, holiday isn't really a thing anymore. I'll see you at headquarters in September, once you're rested and fully healed. In the interim, feel free to call."

"Likewise," Morgan said, "we probably won't answer, but the phone at Stark Tower has a nice ringtone." 

Nick smiled. "See you around . . . agents." 

They waited until Nick was gone before squealing and jumping, grabbing hold of each others hands.

"We're gonna be spies!"

* * *

Lana gave Morgan a side-glance. "Would you quit bouncing? You're giving me a headache."

"I'm sorry if I don't have to wait out six months with broken limbs."

"No, I meant the motion is giving me a headache. Relax, Em, your boyfriend's _fine_."

"He's not--" Morgan cut herself off as the door to her mother's office opened. "Well?" she asked excitedly.

Peter grinned. "You're looking at Stark Industries' youngest tech developer since your dad himself."

Morgan squealed and almost jumped on Peter.

"Fractured femur!" he cried, but he didn't exactly avoid Morgan.

"Sorry!"

"It's fine. Hey, thank you for getting me the interview. It really means a lot."

"You're welcome, Pete. You deserve it."

"Still, thank you."

When Peter placed a swift and chaste kiss on Morgan's cheeks that turned her ears redder than her hands when she used the Extremis, Lana coughed. "Boyfriend!"

"Shut up," Morgan grumbled.

"No, hey, wait a minute," Peter said, "I like the sound of that."

Morgan's cheeks matched her ears. "Good. I think."

"Ask her out," Lana coughed, followed by a muttered, "idiot."

"Who's asking who out?"

Peter squeaked and stepped away from Morgan as Tony walked over. "No one."

"Wow, someone's overdressed," Tony said, flicking Peter's tie.

"You're _underdressed_ for work," Morgan said, stabbing the AC/DC logo on Tony's shirt.

"I hear you got the job, kid. Welcome to the company."

"Thank you, Mr Stark. I won't let you down."

"Oh, I know. Anyway, I came to get you. I'd like to introduce you to our brainchild."

"Our what-now?"

Tony led Peter to an office across the floor. He rapped his knuckles against the glass. "Seb, would you please introduce yourself to Mr Parker."

An oscillogram appeared on the glass. "Hello, Mr Parker."

"Wait, that's--"

"Your Aunt May was employed briefly for us to gather hours of vocal patterns at various volumes and ranges to develop Seb's main voice. She will continue to recieve a monthly payment for as long as Seb continues to use her voice."

"I am the Stark E-Brain," Seb continued, "an artificial intelligence program originally created and developed by Tony Stark, perfected by Peter Parker."

"Wait, what?"

"Remember those designs you emailed Tony?" Lana asked, "the ones I replied to for him? They were used to perfect the Stark E-Brain."

"Even if Pepper didn't hire you," Tony said, "I would've. You've got gifts, Parker, gifts this company could use a little more of."

"Basically," Morgan said, "the two of you are running the tower, which is strange, because neither of you could consciously do that."

"I take it back," Peter said, frowning at Morgan, "I don't wanna go out with you anymore."

"But you did previously?" Tony asked, one eyebrow raised. Peter squeaked. Tony grinned. "I'm kidding." He leaned towards Peter and loudly whispered, "she's a sucker for the Port-a-Diner around Central Park."

"Dad!"

Tony smiled at Morgan. "Oh, El, I forgot. Your mother's looking for you."

"To-_ny_!" Lana cried, hurrying away.

She eventually found Natasha up in the penthouse living room. "Hey. Sorry, your fiancé is very bad at delivering messages."

"I figured," Natasha said with a smile. "Come here, baby."

Lana sat down on the couch, facing Natasha. "Yeah?"

"I hear you'll be working for Shield in September."

Lana shrugged. "To get technical, _training_ begins in September."

Natasha nodded. "The only thing I've ever wanted for you, more than your happiness, is the ability to choose your own path in life. That's why I hid everything from you, from your sister, from Tony -- from everyone. I never wanted my actions to result in your path."

"I know, mom, and I know you're still not happy with the things I can do. Believe me, I'm still getting my head around the idea. But these _are_ the things I can do. Working for Shield, working with Director Fury and Agent Hill and Agent Coulson, I can learn how to properly control my skills. I can learn how to know when it's too much. But more importantly, I won't just have these skills and let them go uncultivated. Besides, Morgan needs a safe space to learn how Extremis works and damn it all to hell if I let her go anywhere alone."

Natasha smiled. "You know I love you, baby."

"I know," Lana said, shifting closer and leaning into her mother. "I love you, too."

"I visited Yelena."

"Yeah?"

"We worked on a little something."

Lana lifted her head.

"For so many years, we competed for the Black Widow mantle but . . . we've decided to both step down and pass it on."

Lana kept silent as Natasha reached out for a flat box. "Graduation gift shopping got lost with all the drama surrounding the kidnap and everything. I hope this makes up for it."

Lana pulled the ribbon and lifted the lid. Nestled between red tissue paper was a black suit. The material was twice as soft and thrice as sturdy as the suit she'd worn the week of the kidnap. She ran her hand over it lightly, afraid to taint the suit.

"You'd be a better Black Widow than Yelena and I combined, маленька Романова."

Many times in her life, Lana had been grateful to have met Morgan. Now, as she stared at the suit, she realised both she and Morgan owed everything they had to Morgan talking too much on her first day, from the Black Widow mantle, to their parents' marriage, to their gifts and skills -- and Lana wouldn't trade it for the world, kidnapping and near-death experiences included.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that brings us to the end of Romanova, folks.
> 
> I love to hear from you guys all the time. I thrive off it, no lie. I want to know every bit. What did you think of the book? What was your favourite part? How many plot twists threw you across the room?
> 
> Drop me a comment (or like spam my inbox on the social media platform of your choice, too, I'm attention starved and trying to find reasons to avoid schoolwork)
> 
> But guess what, just like my other Marvel fics, Romanova will have a bonus chapter. So hang in there, you'll get a little more content.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before we get into the bonus chapter, I have a question.
> 
> If such a thing existed, would you want the link to Romanova's spotify playlist?

~~|2025|~~

"Heads up, Firefly!" Lana yelled, kicking a grenade towards the oncoming attackers.

Morgan looked up and directed a steady stream of flames to the grenade. It nearly blew up half a block. 

"Oh, come on!" Lana yelled as the simulation fizzled out. Frustrated, she kicked at a stone that turned out to he partvof the hologram. 

"Zero score," Phil said over the intercom, "there were several civilians in the building you just blew up." 

Morgan stared at the one-way glass, hoping she was staring Phil down.

"He's lying," Peter's voice filled the training chamber, "we have to cut this session short, Nick has _words_ for us." 

Lana glanced at Morgan and rolled her eyes. "Lovesick," she muttered, pulling her gloves and gauntlets off as she walked to the door.

"Lonely," Morgan fired back instantly.

"Hey, I _like_ being single."

Cassie and Nicole were already in Nick's office when Peter opened the door for the sisters. 

"Sup, Nicky," Lana said, falling into one of the two chairs. 

"Our spies have reported apparent Hydra activity in Siberia, Russia," Nick said, tossing a folder on the table. "Congratulations, team. You've just received your first official mission against Hydra. Don't disappoint us." 

Lana flipped through the folder. "Fun," she said, grinning, "when do we leave?" 

"Tomorrow morning. Stop by the equipment rooms before you head home tonight, Hill has some . . . graduation gifts for you. Your parents had a hand in them. Go on, get lost." 

As if they were still young kids, they ran through the facility, racing each other down to the equipment room. 

"Sir," Phil said, watching the empty doorway, "are you certain they're ready for a fully fledged mission against Hydra? I understand that they've performed well in the missions they've taken thus far, but Hydra is no child's toy." 

Nick raised his eyebrows at Phil. "Were they or were they not key factors in bringing Aim down for good?" 

"That was chance--" 

"No, that's what you call fate." 

"I didn't know you believed in fate, sir." 

"I didn't. Not up until I saw five teenagers go up against an army of flaming crackheads and Aldrich Killian -- and almost succeed without intervention." 

"You've placed a lot of faith on their shoulders, sir." 

Nick shrugged. "You said you saw something in them when they were six, you and Agent Hill both. Whatever it was, it's manifested now. They're a new age of Shield and I have full faith they will make Shield what it was always destined to be. What we never could." 

Phil nodded slowly. "Yeah. I guess they will." 

Down in the equipment room, Nicole sighed and stared at Cassie, Lana and Morgan, a mess of tangled limbs and hair. "Pepper is going to drown us in the champagne."

"We are going to be _so_ _late_ for dinner," Peter whispered, pinching the bridge of his nose, wondering how a bunch of childish agents were expected to end up wiping out a criminal organisation. In their defence, their childish excitement was exactly how they'd gotten themselves hired in the first place.

* * *

"Last card!" Cassie cried, pulling a face for Lana.

"Honey, we're playing Go Fish," Nicole said softly. 

"Wait . . . what?" 

Silence fell over the room -- save the forgotten movie still playing at a low volume -- as they watched the realisation hit Cassie.

Morgan laughed, dropping her cards on the table. "This whole time, you've been playing Crazy 8's with yourself, huh?" 

Cassie threw her cards down. "How do you not notice someone's playing a whole other game on their own?" 

"Oh, we noticed," Lana said, adding her cards to the pile, "we just wondered how long it would take _you_ to notice." 

"You're all assholes," Cassie hissed, throwing her empty cola can at Lana, who dodged. The can hit the popcorn bowl, strewing the remains over the couch seats. "Shit." 

Lana suddenly sat up, alert. She stood up and walked to the window. She peered through it from behind the veil before pushing the thin material aside and opening the window. "Get _the fuck_ off my lawn or I'll throw you _into the sun_!" 

Nicole grinned. "What's up? Potential kidnappers?" 

"Who knows?" Lana said, shrugging, "but they're gone." 

And unlike three years ago that night, they restarted their game, watched the credits roll on the movie and went to sleep, not worried about a damn thing. 

Besides, who would even _try_ to kidnap the Black Widow or her family?


End file.
